The urgent appeals by the Punjab government urging farmers to desist from polluting the air by burning paddy stubble seems to have fallen on deaf ears in state with fresh cases of farm fire being reported everyday.
The urgent appeals by the Punjab government urging farmers to desist from polluting the air by burning paddy stubble seems to have fallen on deaf ears in state with fresh cases of farm fire being reported everyday.
The Punjab government is celebrating the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak. The state’s agriculture department has been making fervent appeals to the farmers to avoid polluting at least this year to mark the holy event. Guru Nanak was a strong votary for conserving the environment and agriculture department has linked its campaign against burning of paddy stubble with the Sikh Master’s philosophy. They have been advertising aggressively besides putting up posters of Capt Chief Minister Amarinder Singh across the state. The CM, in the posters, is seen appealing to the farmers, with folded hands, not to pollute the environment.
The appeals, however, do not seem to have had much impact. While the maximum number of fires have been reported from Majha region, fires are being reported from other parts also. “Babe Nanak ne theek keha si. Par zimidar ki karan. Ohna da bura haal hai. Sarkaaran nu kaho sanu bonus de den. Nahi tan agg laggugi ( Baba Nanak was absolutely right in his teachings to save the environment. But what should the farmers do? They are in bad shape. Tell the government to give us bonus. Otherwise the paddy stubble would be set ablaze),” said Kartar Singh, a farmer from Jungpura village in Mohali.
Signalling towards his fields being prepared for sowing cauliflower, he said, “Look at this field. We want to cultivate vegetables. The paddy harvesting got finished just now. We need to clear the fields fast. And we do not have machines to incorporate paddy stubble in the fields,” he said.
On why they do not make use of subsidy pf 80 pc being given by the government to group of farmers, Gurdev Singh, another farmer seated next to him, said, “Zimidar kithe kathha ho sakda. Saade munde shaam nu ghar aa ke kathhe nahi baithde. Zamana khatarnaak aa gya. (Farmers do not get together. Even our sons do not sit together after getting home in the evening. It is a dangerous world now)”.
He said it was not feasible to get farmers to pool resources to buy subsidised machines.
Asked if the farmers were happy living in the polluted environment, Jagdish Singh of Jungpura came up with a prompt reply. “Do you feel this smoke? And the suffocation? This is because of paddy stubble fire. We know all this. Do you think we want to live in this? But we have no solution. Koi zimidar baare vi socho. ( Somebody please think about farmers also)”.
Pointing towards the blanket of smoke engulfing the skies, Gurvinder Singh of Rampur village in Patiala said, “Agg chharo paase laggi hai. Koi nahi sochda (The fields are on fire everywhere. But nobody cares). It is difficult to breathe.”
He rued that he was witnessing fires in the area for a couple of days but he had not seen any enforcement agency coming to his village, “Nobody comes. The farmers are doing it blatantly. If someone wants to enforce the ban it would be done,” he said.
At a field in the village a labourer was seen setting te paddy stubble to fire. “I am just following the orders of the farmer who pays me. He asked me to set the stubble ablaze,” he said.
A few kilometers away, a field in Gandhakheri village in Patiala was in flames. Located next to the highway, the dark smoke rsisng from the fields could be seen from a distance. Karnail Singh, a farm labourer, sat by the field watching it burn, “It is a common practice. Nobody cares. Everyone is bothered about their selfish gains,” he said.
He said he knew of only one family in his village that had not set fire to the paddy stubble “They have left the stubble in their fields. But nobody seems to emulate them”.
Meanwhile, as air quality in Delhi worsened, the Ministry of Earth Sciences’ air quality research and forecast service, SAFAR, said the share of stubble burning to Delhi’s PM2.5 concentration was 10 per cent Friday and was predicted to increase to 18 per cent Saturday.
“Stubble burning incidents in Haryana, Punjab, and nearby border regions have shown an increasing trend over the last three days. Additionally, a few new fires have been observed over western Uttar Pradesh,” it said in a report.
The period between October 15 and November 15 is considered critical as maximum number of stubble burning incidents take place in this span in Punjab and adjoining states and is one of the main reasons for alarming spike in pollution in Delhi-NCR.
Despite a ban on stubble burning in Punjab and Haryana, farmers continue to defy it amid lack of financial incentives.
State governments, meanwhile, claim to be providing 50 to 80 per cent subsidy to farmers and cooperative societies to buy modern farm equipment for in-situ management of paddy straw and running a massive awareness campaign against stubble burning.
The Punjab government is celebrating the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak. The state’s agriculture department has been making fervent appeals to the farmers to avoid polluting at least this year to mark the holy event. Guru Nanak was a strong votary for conserving the environment and agriculture department has linked its campaign against burning of paddy stubble with the Sikh Master’s philosophy. They have been advertising aggressively besides putting up posters of Capt Chief Minister Amarinder Singh across the state. The CM, in the posters, is seen appealing to the farmers, with folded hands, not to pollute the environment.
The appeals, however, do not seem to have had much impact. While the maximum number of fires have been reported from Majha region, fires are being reported from other parts also. “Babe Nanak ne theek keha si. Par zimidar ki karan. Ohna da bura haal hai. Sarkaaran nu kaho sanu bonus de den. Nahi tan agg laggugi ( Baba Nanak was absolutely right in his teachings to save the environment. But what should the farmers do? They are in bad shape. Tell the government to give us bonus. Otherwise the paddy stubble would be set ablaze),” said Kartar Singh, a farmer from Jungpura village in Mohali.
Signalling towards his fields being prepared for sowing cauliflower, he said, “Look at this field. We want to cultivate vegetables. The paddy harvesting got finished just now. We need to clear the fields fast. And we do not have machines to incorporate paddy stubble in the fields,” he said.
On why they do not make use of subsidy pf 80 pc being given by the government to group of farmers, Gurdev Singh, another farmer seated next to him, said, “Zimidar kithe kathha ho sakda. Saade munde shaam nu ghar aa ke kathhe nahi baithde. Zamana khatarnaak aa gya. (Farmers do not get together. Even our sons do not sit together after getting home in the evening. It is a dangerous world now)”.
He said it was not feasible to get farmers to pool resources to buy subsidised machines.
Asked if the farmers were happy living in the polluted environment, Jagdish Singh of Jungpura came up with a prompt reply. “Do you feel this smoke? And the suffocation? This is because of paddy stubble fire. We know all this. Do you think we want to live in this? But we have no solution. Koi zimidar baare vi socho. ( Somebody please think about farmers also)”.
Pointing towards the blanket of smoke engulfing the skies, Gurvinder Singh of Rampur village in Patiala said, “Agg chharo paase laggi hai. Koi nahi sochda (The fields are on fire everywhere. But nobody cares). It is difficult to breathe.”
He rued that he was witnessing fires in the area for a couple of days but he had not seen any enforcement agency coming to his village, “Nobody comes. The farmers are doing it blatantly. If someone wants to enforce the ban it would be done,” he said.
At a field in the village a labourer was seen setting te paddy stubble to fire. “I am just following the orders of the farmer who pays me. He asked me to set the stubble ablaze,” he said.
A few kilometers away, a field in Gandhakheri village in Patiala was in flames. Located next to the highway, the dark smoke rsisng from the fields could be seen from a distance. Karnail Singh, a farm labourer, sat by the field watching it burn, “It is a common practice. Nobody cares. Everyone is bothered about their selfish gains,” he said.
He said he knew of only one family in his village that had not set fire to the paddy stubble “They have left the stubble in their fields. But nobody seems to emulate them”.
Meanwhile, as air quality in Delhi worsened, the Ministry of Earth Sciences’ air quality research and forecast service, SAFAR, said the share of stubble burning to Delhi’s PM2.5 concentration was 10 per cent Friday and was predicted to increase to 18 per cent Saturday.
“Stubble burning incidents in Haryana, Punjab, and nearby border regions have shown an increasing trend over the last three days. Additionally, a few new fires have been observed over western Uttar Pradesh,” it said in a report.
The period between October 15 and November 15 is considered critical as maximum number of stubble burning incidents take place in this span in Punjab and adjoining states and is one of the main reasons for alarming spike in pollution in Delhi-NCR.
Despite a ban on stubble burning in Punjab and Haryana, farmers continue to defy it amid lack of financial incentives.
State governments, meanwhile, claim to be providing 50 to 80 per cent subsidy to farmers and cooperative societies to buy modern farm equipment for in-situ management of paddy straw and running a massive awareness campaign against stubble burning.