FARM FIRES: Six-fold rise in punitive action against farmers this year

The Punjab government has initiated punitive action in 29,671 cases against the farmers who resorted to burning of paddy stubble despite the National Green Tribunal

The Punjab government has initiated punitive action in 29,671 cases against the farmers who resorted to burning of paddy stubble despite the National Green Tribunal (NGT) having imposed a blanket ban on the practice, a six-fold rise in such instances over the last year.

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During the 2018 kharif season, punitive action was taken against 4,805 farmers who were only imposed environment compensation of ₹1.37 crore and no other action was taken against them.

Punitive action comprises filing of FIR, red entry in revenue records, ₹2 lakh fine on those owning combine harvesters with super straw management system (SMS) besides the environment compensation.

But such action has hardly proved to be a deterrent this time as the total number of cases of farm fires recorded so far is 48,689 (till November 12) against 44,845 during the corresponding period last year. On Wednesday, only five farm fires could be tracked owing to a dense cloud layer in the state, according to the Punjab Remote Sensing Centre, Ludhiana.

Officials of the Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB), agriculture directorate and the remote sensing centre say the number of stubble fires may have gone beyond the last kharif season’s total number of 50,590 as fires couldn’t be recorded due to a thick cloud cover on two days last week besides Wednesday.

As per data procured from the state agriculture department, 37 lakh acre area is under farm fires against the last year’s 43.6 lakh acres in the kharif season.

Additional chief secretary (agriculture) Viswajeet Khanna claimed that stubble fires will come to an end within four to five days. “There is a dip of 15% in the area under farm fires. Data on it is received every five days,” he added.

PPCB member secretary Krunesh Garg said 1,709 FIRs were registered against the farmers for violation of Sections 144, 107 and 151 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).

“As many as 104 farmers were arrested who got bail. Red entries were made in land records of 13,580 farmers while environment compensation was imposed on 14,200. Though no recovery has been made so far, the total compensation amount is ₹3.56 crore,” he added.

This time, owners of 78 harvest machines were imposed a fine of ₹2 lakh each for not fixing super straw management system.

Districts authorities in south Malwa region imposed environment compensation of ₹90 lakh for stubble burning this season, including ₹31 lakh in Bathinda district, ₹12 lakh in Moga and ₹11 lakh in Muktsar. The belt has the highest number of red entries (3,300) in land records for burning crop residue, with 314 farmers having been arrested in seven districts.

In the Doaba region, Kapurthala recorded 1,332 cases of farm fires with 22 FIRs against the defaulting farmers. The agriculture department has not imposed any fine or made an arrest in these cases,” said the Jagdish Singh, district chief agriculture officer.

Jalandhar additional deputy commissioner (ADC) Jasbir Singh said till Wednesday 1,415 cases were reported in the district and ₹9.10 lakh fine was imposed. Also, 61 FIRs were registered against farmers, he added.

Ludhiana district witnessed 2,340 cases of paddy residue burning from September 23 to November 12. District chief agricultural officer Baldev Singh Naurath said red entries were made in land records of 395 farmers and 127 were booked for violation of ban orders.

In Barnala, Jagjit Singh, a junior engineer, and Jatinder Singh, a patwari, were held hostage when they were checking farm fire sites. The police registered a complaint against Darshan Singh and Sukhdev Singh of Bhotna village and Sandeep Singh of Cheema village in this regard.

(With inputs form Vishal Joshi, Mohit Khanna, Avtar Singh, BB Goyal, Jatinder Mahal)