EVEN as the Supreme Court has directed Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan to ensure that crop residue burning is stopped forthwith in an effort to curb air pollution in Delhi-NCR, under-reporting of farm fires has badly dented the credibility of the authorities concerned. Ludhiana is a case in point: Of the 70,000-odd farmers in the district, around 56,000 have already harvested paddy, but barely 1,000 farm fires were reported. It seems improbable that tens of thousands of Ludhiana farmers chose not to set paddy straw ablaze despite the shortage of crop residue management machines. An unbelievably low number of farm fires have also been reported from some other districts of Punjab, including Amritsar, Tarn Taran and Muktsar. The situation is no better in Haryana. In Karnal, one of the major paddy-growing districts of the state, over 56,000 farmers got themselves registered on the Meri Fasal Mera Byora portal for selling paddy, while around 12,000 of them applied for an incentive of Rs 1,000 per acre for not burning stubble. However, barely 100 incidents of stubble burning have been reported from the district this season. This begs the obvious question: how have nearly 44,000 farmers disposed of the humungous amount of stubble?

On the basis of such under-reporting, Punjab and Haryana are claiming a significant reduction in the number of stubble burning incidents compared to the corresponding period last year. However, the worsening of the air quality in several cities this time in comparison with October-November 2022 is a dead giveaway.

In a flawed approach, the authorities are relying heavily on satellite images, which might miss smaller or scattered fires that sensors are unable to detect. Field inspections are a must to crosscheck the data so that the mismatch between the figures can be reduced or removed altogether. Exercising due diligence in recording farm fires is an important step towards gauging the enormity of the problem. Just like the farm fires, the jugglery with numbers must be stopped forthwith.