New Delhi: The central government Monday claimed that the number of stubble burning incidents that have been reported is comparatively less than that of last year. It also said the Centre started preparation as the harvesting season has approached.

The Centre said said, “the current year has so far seen a reduction from 3,431 to 1,695 fire counts as compared to the corresponding period of last year.”

The total farm fire incidents reported in Punjab are 1,444 as against 2,375 incidents in 2021, in Haryana are 2,44 as compared to 1,026 in the previous year, and in U.P. (NCR) are 05 as against 30 fire incidents during the corresponding period of 2021.

In NCT of Delhi, 02 fire incidents have been reported this year. No fire incident has been reported from the two NCR Districts of Rajasthan.

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The Commission for Air Quality Management in NCR and Adjoining Areas (CAQM) has been actively monitoring paddy residue burning events for a month now i.e. from September 15 2022 onwards in the states of Punjab, Haryana and 8 NCR Districts of U.P.

During the current harvesting season, the first paddy residue burning incident was reported on September 15 in Punjab, on September 18 in Haryana, on September 30 in the NCR Districts of Uttar Pradesh and on October 05 in Delhi.

Several meetings have been conducted regarding the preparedness and implementation of action plan for Prevention and Control of Paddy Straw Burning in 2022.

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