E-Paper
Dip in farm fires improves AQI in Haryana cities
As per the air quality bulletin of the Central Pollution Control Board, the air quality of Karnal has now improved to ‘satisfactory’ from ‘moderate’, while the air quality of Kurukshetra, Dharuhera and Manesar has returned to ‘moderate’ from ‘poor’
: The air quality of several Haryana cities has improved due to a fall in the incidents of farm fires as the state on Thursday reported 78 cases of stubble burning, indicating a decreasing trend in the last two days.
As per the air quality bulletin of the Central Pollution Control Board, the air quality of Karnal has now improved to ‘satisfactory’ from ‘moderate’, while the air quality of Kurukshetra, Dharuhera and Manesar has returned to ‘moderate’ from ‘poor’.
The Air Quality Index (AQI) of Bahadurgarh and Kaithal still remained ‘poor’ on the third consecutive day. Similarly, the air quality of the industrial city of Faridabad returned to ‘poor’ category from ‘very poor’ a day ago.
The number of cities with the ‘poor’ air quality has come down to four from seven as the AQI of Bahadurgarh, Faridabad, Kaithal and Panipat has been measured 226, 296, 226, and 232 respectively.
The improved AQI in these cities have been attributed to the decrease number of stubble burning incident in the state.
According to the data of the Haryana Space Applications Centre (HARSAC), the state witnessed 78 incidents of farm fires on Thursday, taking the total number of farm fires to 664. The state had reported 134 and 122 cases on October 18 and 19 respectively.
On Thursday, maximum 22 cases farm fires were reported in Kaithal followed by 15 each in Kurukshetra and Karnal, 7 in Fatehabad, 5 in Jind, 4 in Palwal, 3 in Panipat and 2 each in Ambala, Hisar and Yamunanagar.
Out of the total farm fires in the state, Kaithal district has recorded the highest 183 farm fires followed by 139 in Kurukshetra, 117 in Karnal, 56 in Fatehabad, 38 in Ambala and 34 in Yamunanagar.
Officials in the state agriculture department said that due to regular monitoring and awareness drive, the incidents of farm fires have come down. The cases will fall further as the harvesting in most of the northern districts is in its last leg, they said.
