Every October and November, Punjab’s fields turn into a race against the calendar. Paddy is harvested, and wheat has to go into the ground almost at once. Most farmers get only a twenty-to-twenty-five-day window to clear the leftover straw, prepare the soil and sow the next crop. Miss that narrow window and germination suffers; the yield drops and the money the family was counting on shrinks with it. Manual labour to cut, gather and haul away the dense residue is simply too expensive for the large number of small and marginal holdings. Machines such as Happy Seeders, Super Seeders and mulchers can chop the straw and mix it back into the soil in one or two passes, yet the cost of buying, maintaining and fueling them remains heavy. Even when government subsidies and Custom Hiring Centres put the equipment within reach, daily rental, diesel, and the need for a reasonably powerful tractor still keep the option out of reach for many farmers.
The truth is farmers still burn paddy straw openly in day or, in many cases, at night. The Union government rejected the idea, arguing that massive subsidies had already been poured into crop-residue management machinery and that Punjab should follow the model used next door. That scheme has operated for several seasons. In Punjab, the deadlock continues. In-situ management inside Punjab expanded sharply. The growing industrial demand is creating some rural employment and the beginnings of a bioeconomy, although assured procurement, remunerative prices and smooth supply chains are still required to keep the system working.
The government data claims that out of the approximately 20 million metric tonnes of paddy straw generated in Punjab every year, the vast majority is successfully diverted from open burning through two complementary scientific methods. Under in-situ management, roughly 11.4 million tonnes of straw are chopped and mixed directly back into the soil using specialised machinery like Super Seeders and Happy Seeders. Concurrently, under ex-situ management, nearly 7.85 million tonnes of straw are collected and transported off the fields to serve as industrial feedstock for biomass plants, compressed biogas units, and brick kilns. When combined, these on-field and off-field pathways account for roughly 19.25 million tonnes of scientifically managed crop residue annually. As of this month, Punjab has recorded a cumulative total of 4,459 farm-fire incidents for the current paddy harvesting season. Following a sharp single-day spike of 1,152 new cases reported on Diwali day alone, state authorities have ramped up enforcement measures across heavily affected districts like Tarn Taran, Ferozepur, and Sangrur. The ruling AAP government in Punjab went further and proposed a joint incentive package of Rs 2,500 per acre, asking the Centre to fund Rs 1,500 of that amount while the state would cover the remaining share. In Haryana, the BJP-led government runs a straightforward direct payment of Rs 1,000 per acre to farmers who refrain from burning. Around 11.4 million tonnes of paddy straw were handled directly in the fields during 2025-26, nearly three-fifths of the state’s estimated generation. The government says those practices produced cultivation-cost savings exceeding Rs 600 crore and conserved an estimated 571 million cubic metres of groundwater through better soil and moisture retention. On the ex-situ side, nearly 7.85 million tonnes of paddy straw generated in Punjab in 2025 were used in industrial boilers, biomass and thermal power plants, fodder, compressed biogas, brick kilns and bioethanol production.
To deter violations, the administration has registered 884 First Information Reports (FIRs), marked over 1,000 “red entries” in land revenue records, and levied environmental compensation exceeding Rs 62 lakh.
Without comparable cash relief, farmers remain stuck between mounting debts, unaffordable alternatives and the urgent need to clear fields before the wheat-sowing deadline closes.
AAP leaders in Punjab stress the multi-year decline, the money spent on machinery and subsidies, and the fact that farm fires are only one contributor among vehicular emissions, industrial activity, construction dust, garbage burning and local firecrackers. They accuse opposition parties, particularly the BJP, of selectively targeting and unfairly maligning Punjab’s farmers for political gain. Central and opposition figures reply that seasonal surges in farm fires still severely degrade regional air quality despite the official claims of progress. They argue that the state administration relies more on public relations than on effective ground-level enforcement and results, and that fines, red entries and physical verification have not kept pace with the satellite detections.
That said, if the fire counts have fallen so far, the seasonal smog in Delhi-NCR continues to produce loud political arguments every autumn.
