Ruchika M Khanna
Chandigarh, November 4
Even as the number of incidents of farm fires crossed 26,500 today, the state government has so far resisted from taking any drastic coercive action against errant farmers.
Red entries only for NGT
The CM has already announced that no action will be taken against farmers. The red entries made in the revenue records are only to show to the NGT that the govt is acting on its directions. — Buta Singh Burjgill, Prez, BKU Dakaunda
No FIR for the burning of crop residue has been registered. Though red entries in revenue records have been made against 2,400 farmers, there is no consistent effort to recover the fines imposed on them for stubble-burning. Of the Rs 96 lakh fine imposed, only Rs 37,500 has been realised. Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and Agriculture Minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal, too, have been categorically saying that they would not act against farmers.
The state government, under fire from both and National Green Tribunal for the smog enveloping North India, says this is as much because of the political considerations as because of the “unreliable data of fire incidents spotted by the satellite data”.
Sources in the government claim that the satellite images for catching farm fire incidents were not perfect. “Our teams personally visited 13,800 fields where farm fires were reported in satellite images, but we found farm fires on only 5,800 sites,” said a senior official in Environment Department.
He added that the better way to judge the incidents would be by calculating the burnt area, which is less this year, as compared to last year. “To date, the burnt area in the state stands at 4.33 lakh hectares as compared to 4.77 lakh hectares in the corresponding period last year. Last year, a total of 14.50 lakh hectares was burnt, but this year, the area burnt is expected to be much less, considering that 70 per cent of harvest is over,” he added.
