Paddy stubble fire season begins in Punjab

After a devastating flood during the southwest monsoon season, Punjab’s farmers are now preparing to set alight paddy stubble in their fields.

This photo captures a farm worker setting fire to paddy stubble in a field in Punjab’s Gurdaspur district.

Punjab follows a rotational system of cropping. The Kharif (monsoon crops) season’s main crop is paddy. The crop is usually harvested in the autumn (October and November). The stubble is then burnt to prepare the fields for wheat, the main Rabi or winter crop.

The setting alight of paddy stubble across Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh during the autumn, has been leading to major incidents of smog over Delhi during the past decade.

This year though, authorities have created a team, known as the parali (stubble) protection force, which will share daily action-taken reports, the Hindustan Times reported.