Farm fires in Punjab ease to 284, but tally crosses 8,200; 376 FIRs lodged

Bathinda: Punjab recorded 294 crop residue burning cases on Monday, taking the total number of farm fires during the ongoing wheat harvesting season to 8,221.The number of fresh cases was a relief of sorts from the past four days, as the state had reported 1,447 farm fire cases on May 8, the highest single-day tally this season. It was followed by 932 cases on May 9 and 841 on May 10.Legal action against farmers continued, including FIRs, red entries in land records and environmental compensation. According to the Punjab Pollution Control Board dashboard, 376 FIRs had been registered under Section 223 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita till the evening of May 10, including 48 FIRs registered on May 10 alone.The highest number of FIRs were lodged in Sangrur (71), followed by Patiala (59), Mansa and Fazilka (51 each).Authorities have also made 631 red entries in land records and imposed Rs 60.7 lakh environmental compensation in 1,234 farm fire cases. Of this, Rs 3 lakh has been recovered so far.Across states, Madhya Pradesh reported 302 farm fire cases on Monday, Uttar Pradesh 217 and Haryana 55.According to CREAMS (Consortium for Research on Agroecosystem Monitoring and Modeling from Space), Punjab has reported 8,221 farm fire cases so far this season, compared to 35,742 in Madhya Pradesh and 14,766 in Uttar Pradesh. Ferozepur remained the worst-affected district with 781 farm fire cases till May 11, followed by Bathinda (689), Tarn Taran (681), Amritsar (646), Sangrur (639) and Moga (636).