NEW DELHI: The illegal burning of farm fields in northern India reached a record high this season, fuelling a toxic smog choking millions including in the capital New Delhi, government monitors said Tuesday.
The northern state of Punjab — an agriculture hub often dubbed as “India’s wheat bowl” — recorded 1,251 farm fires on Monday, according to the government-run Punjab Remote Sensing Centre.
Tens of thousands of farmers around the capital in Punjab and Haryana states burn their crop residue at the start of every winter, clearing fields from recently harvested rice to make way for wheat.
The practice is banned but law enforcement is lax, and it remains the cheapest and quickest way for farmers to prepare their fields for the next growing season.
India is the world’s biggest exporter of rice and a major exporter of wheat.
Since September, Punjab has recorded 9,655 farm fires. The previous highest number on a single day was 730, which was recorded on November 8.
On Monday, when the most fires were recorded, levels of PM2.5 pollutants — dangerous cancer-causing microparticles that enter the bloodstream through the lungs — surged past 60 times the World Health Organization’s recommended daily maximum in New Delhi. Farmers are a powerful voting bloc and remain defiant about their role in the smog, saying they cannot switch to more expensive methods without substantial government support. –Agencies
