Written by Kanchan VasdevChandigarh | November 13, 2025 10:50 AM IST 3 min readAfter the CAQM instructed Punjab to establish a ‘Parali Protection Force’ at district and block-levels to monitor and prevent stubble burning. (File)On the day the Supreme Court directed Punjab to file a report on the steps being taken to curb stubble burning, as many as 155 farm fires were detected in the state on Wednesday.The farm fires were detected by Consortium for Research of Agroecosystem Monitoring and Modeling from Space (CREAMS), IARI, New Delhi by using satellite remote sensing.Punjab Agriculture minister Gurmeet Singh Khuddian told The Indian Express that the state machinery was trying its level best to control the fires and had succeeded to quite an extent. “You go around the countryside in Punjab and see for yourself. You will not find any farm on fire. These 155 fires must be the result of farmers just burning the residue in the corners of the fields which are inaccessible to machines. Otherwise, the stubble is being managed through machines. You will see bales and bales of stubble in the countryside,” Khuddian said.He added, “They blame us for pollution in Delhi. Now, farmers still have a reason to put the residue on fire. It is about economics. But what was the overdrive of bursting firecrackers on Diwali about? When it comes to them, then anything is allowed. Why do they not have electric firecrackers? The farmers have now understood that they will not set their fields on fire. They know it is not good for soil. The fire is not good for the micronutrients.”Earlier in the day, taking note of stubble burning leading to further worsening of air quality levels in Delhi-NCR, a bench comprising Chief Justice BR Gavai and Justices K Vinod Chandran and N V Anjaria asked “Punjab and Haryana governments to file a report on what steps are being taken to curb stubble burning”.The Punjab government has been claiming that the stubble fires were in check. Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) data showed that farm fire cases dropped 70 per cent in 2024, when 10,909 incidents were reported against 36,663 in 2023 and 49,922 in 2022.With 155 fires incidents reported Wednesday, the total number of fires this season has reached 4,662, of which 58 per cent (2,720) occurred in past 12 days. While the highest number of 442 cases were reported on November 1, the number shows a 35 per cent decline compared to last year’s 7,112 cases during the corresponding period.Story continues below this adAfter the CAQM instructed Punjab to establish a ‘Parali Protection Force’ at district and block-levels to monitor and prevent stubble burning, PPCB Superintendent Engineer Rajeev Gupta, the nodal officer for stubble management, said hotspot villages have been identified based on fire incident data. To address the issue, nearly 10,000 personnel have been deployed across 11,624 villages, including 5,000 nodal officers, 1,500 cluster coordinators, and 1,200 field officers.These teams are required to submit daily action-taken reports through a mobile app — Action Taken Report (ATR) — developed jointly by the PPCB and Punjab Remote Sensing Centre (PRSC), following physical verification of fire incidents.Khuddian said that to check farm fires his department has sanctioned as many as 21,958 Crop Residue Management (CRM) machines.Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram© The Indian Express Pvt LtdTags:Punjab Pollution Control Boardstubble burning