The incidence of straw burning is on the rise in Punjab, with 1200 cases reported in two weeks

-No one is worried about reducing pollution

New Delhi on Tuesday, October 6, 2020

The incidence of straw burning in Punjab was increasing day by day. There were 1200 such incidents in the last fortnight. The grain harvest was to begin on September 21st. The straw burning had started two weeks earlier.

This time there were five times more incidents than the straw burning incidents in 2019. The highest number of such incidents in Punjab was reported in Amritsar.

Fifty per cent of the 1,200 incidents that took place in the last fortnight took place in Amritsar alone. Tarn Taran came in second with 259 such incidents. There were 50 incidents in Gurdaspur and 60 in Patiala. Apparently this led to an increase in pollution in the surrounding areas and states.

On the one hand, the harvest in the fields and on the other hand, the preparation for the onset of winter means that in some places pollution like thick fog was spreading. The situation was such that even four or five feet away could not be seen. However, the Punjab Pollution Control Board does not accept this. "The season is just beginning," board member Krunesh Garg told the media. The incidence of straw burning is likely to be higher in the last week of October.

In 2018 and 2019, there were fifty thousand incidents of burning straw. However, Garg expressed hope that not so many incidents would happen this time. The state government had appointed 8,000 nodal officers to monitor such incidents. However, there are 10,500 villages in the state where foodgrains have been grown on 66 lakh acres of land this year. Basmati rice alone is produced in seven and a half lakh acres of land. Under these circumstances, it would not be surprising if straw burning incidents exceeded expectations.