With 709 cases of stubble burning reported on the last day on November 30, the 2024 season (September 15 to November 30) has seen the number of incidents falling by more than 34 per cent to 37,602 as against 57,242 in 2023, which government officials attributed to various measures taken to make farmers aware as well as helping them manage the paddy straw better.

However, it is yet to be established clearly the reason for the drastic drop in case this year amid some media reports alleging that farmers were deciding the burning time en ensure those are not detected by satellites. Even the Supreme Court has sought a report from the air pollution watchdog CAQM on the issue based on media reports.

According to CREAMS (a short name for Consortium for Research on Agroecosystem Monitoring and Modeling from Space), managed by Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), 10,909 cases of stubble burning have been reported from Punjab, 1,406 from Haryana, 6,142 from Uttar Pradesh, 13 from Delhi, 2,772 from Rajasthan and 16,360 from Madhya Pradesh between September 15 and November 30.

The active fire events due to rice residue burning were monitored using satellite remote sensing, following the “Standard Protocol” recommended by the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM), CREAMS said in a bulletin.

Punjab had reported 1,02,379 cases in 2016, the first year when CREAMS started monitoring stubble burning and it has been on a decline since then almost every year. There were 67,079 cases in 2017, 59,684 in 2018, 50,738 in 2019. But rose to 83,002 in 2020 though declined thereafter to 71,304 in 2021, 49,922 in 2022 and 36,663 in 2023.

“While stubble burning cases in related to closing date of sowing window of wheat the government should extend the monitoring in UP and MP whenever there is late planting takes place as most of the rice farmers prefer paddy-wheat cycle,” said an official source adding the cases on the last day of the monitoring period shows the urgency for extended focus on the two states.

While Uttar Pradesh had 373 cases, Madhya Pradesh had 286 on November 30, as against Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan together had only 49 stubble burning incidents.