समाचार Samāchār · India · 10 November 2026

Punjab logs 1,152 farm fires on Diwali. A season of gains is undone in one day

The state’s tally rose from 3,307 to 4,459 in a single day. It is now 23% above the same point last year. FIRs and fines have not changed the economics of the straw.

Punjab recorded 1,152 farm fires on Diwali, 8 November. PTI reports it was the biggest single-day jump of the season. The state’s count rose from 3,307 on 7 November to 4,459. Until Diwali, Punjab was marginally better than last year: 3,384 fires had been counted by the same date in 2025. After one day it is 837 fires worse. The total now stands about 23% above the 3,622 recorded at this point last year, according to ETV Bharat and Dynamite News.

The fires spread across the paddy belt. Sangrur reported 194 new fires, the most of any district that day, taking its season total to 488. Ferozepur added 157, Bathinda 132, Patiala 92, Barnala 91 and Ludhiana 71. Tarn Taran has the highest seasonal tally at 654. ETV Bharat reports that about 91.4% of the paddy harvest is complete.

Enforcement has been steady. PTI reports 884 FIRs under Section 223 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 1,017 red entries in land revenue records and environmental compensation of over ₹62 lakh in 1,228 cases, of which over ₹32 lakh has been recovered. The Commission for Air Quality Management met senior officers and police from 12 districts. It took a serious view of the very high number of fires, directed that monitoring and enforcement be intensified and said nodal officers would be held accountable.

The numbers say penalties alone do not move the farmer. The window between the paddy harvest and wheat sowing is short. Burning is the cheapest way to clear a field in it. Officials and farmers have worked for years to bring the count down, and that work showed until 7 November. What changes the outcome is giving the straw a value: machines on rent at village level, and plants that buy residue as fuel. When straw earns money, it stops being burnt.

What a founder takes from it: Paddy straw is a feedstock that has no buyer at the right price in the right fortnight. The fix is a market for it, in biomass power, compressed biogas and ethanol, built close to the fields. That is a business for Indian founders, and the cleaner air is a health dividend no hospital can deliver.