Lucknow: More than 1,100 FIRs have been lodged against 2,000 farmers in Uttar Pradesh for being responsible for stubble burning.
Almost, 144 FIRs have been lodged against farmers in various districts over the last 24 hours alone for stubble burning. The police lodged 15 FIRs in Balrampur, eight in Kushinagar and Bahraich, seven each in Aligarh, Hardoi and Basti, and six each in Rampur, Shahjahanpur, Siddhartha Nagar amongst others.
Six people have additionally been taken into custody in Saharanpur for burning stubble.
Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police (DGP) H.C. Awasthi has given strict commands to all district police chiefs to put a stop on air pollution, by spreading awareness against stubble burning and for proper disposal of crop residue by getting village committees and village heads involved.
Senior authorities at the state DGP headquarters stated that Additional Chief Secretary Agriculture had educated the DGP that despite reiterated instructions, stubble burning cases were not coming doing.
ADG, law and order, Prashant Kumar said the Supreme Court was watching the situation and district police chiefs have been requested to guarantee rules of controlling stubble burning were followed.
The Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) has demanded the withdrawal of cases against the farmers and has warned agitation if ‘victimisation’ of farmers was not stopped.
In the interim, because of stubble burning, a countless number of bees were allegedly burned to death in a farm in Shahjahanpur. A honey bee farmer, Dharmendra Kumar, asserted that he had endured huge losses and has registered a complaint in this issue.
Dharmendra had taken up beekeeping training in Pipraula village. In 2017, he took a loan of Rs 2.5 lakh under the Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Program and began his apiary with 50 hive boxes.
Each hive box cost Rs 4,500 and each hive delivered almost 25kg honey. Other than honey production, honey bees assume a significant role as pollinators in crop production.
Air pollution remains to be a profound concern in Delhi as the air quality kept on being ‘very poor’ on Tuesday morning even as the information said that the number of stubble burning occurrences in Punjab have risen 49% this season.
Punjab has seen 49% more stubble burning occurrences from September 21 to November 2 when compared with the same time frame a year ago, official information issued by Punjab Remote Sensing Centre said.
On Monday, Punjab witnessed 3,590 occurrences of farm fires with the most number of such occurrences recorded in Sangrur region at 696.
