Farm fires choke outskirts as ban remains on paper

Bhopal: Less than an hour's drive, on the city's outskirts, fires are raging untended. There are no distress calls, no fire tenders with tolling bells rushing to the rescue. Meanwhile, the fires get bigger as thick black smoke fills nearby neighbourhoods and darkens the skies, making the air unbreathable.This, in a nutshell, has been the living nightmare for residents settled just off the 11 Mile Road in the Misrod area over the last couple of days. Multiple fires have been tearing through acres of dry farm fields, which were set alight by farmers after harvesting wheat. A sense of fatalism, combined with exasperation, has gripped occupants of residential spaces lining 11 Mile Road and Bhojpur Road, and, into the distance. Scenes of charred and blackened fields and those freshly set alight scream wilful disdain to a rule that bars crop residue burning. In fact, the penalties range between Rs 2,500 and Rs 15,000 for every stubble (parali) burning incident. The violators also risk losing the welfare cover of Rs 6,000 annually under the Mukhya Mantri Kisan Kalyan Yojana and the procurement of their farm produce at MSP (minimum support price), for a year.The latest report by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), based on real-time feed from domestic satellites tracking farm fires, pegged the number of crop burning incidents this year in MP at 10,615, till April 12.The figure was significantly more than Punjab, one of the country's predominantly agrarian states, which recorded only three such incidents in the same period of time, according to the report.The brazen crop residue burning despite sanctions not only raises concerns around compliance gap but also the larger health and environmental risks. One of many affected residents at British Park, a residential colony lining Bhojpur Road, told TOI, "I had to shut the doors and windows to keep out the toxic smoke from these farm fires. I tried raising concern over similar incidents last year with fellow residents at the colony. However, many of them, who live a little far-off from where the fires were raging, seemed oblivious and unbothered by these incidents."Several phone calls and text messages to state agriculture minister Aidel Singh Kansana for a comment on this report went unanswered.