Standing in his half-burned field, Gurmeet Singh, a paddy farmer in Sangrur’s Sibiya village, acknowledged a gradual change. “We only burn loose straw, not standing stalks,” he said. Gurmeet cultivates 30 acres of leased land and this is the second year in a row when he has only partially burned paddy stubble.
He is among a growing number of farmers in Patiala and Sangrur, in Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Singh Mann’s Dhuri constituency, who no longer burn their entire stock of stubble. As Delhi chokes from air pollution after the Diwali season, stubble burning in neighbouring states, especially Punjab, worsens the situation. This month, it contributed 17 percent of the hazardous pollutant PM 2.5 in Delhi’s air. This harvesting season, Punjab has recorded 45,319 fire counts so far, a decrease of 28 percent from the same period last year. Partly this is down to the state’s farmers burning less paddy stubble.
