Union ministers Bhupender Yadav and Shivraj Singh Chouhan jointly held a high-level review meeting on stubble burning at Krishi Bhawan on Tuesday, issuing strict instructions to states to monitor fields for farm fire incidents after 3 pm – when farmers are likely to burn stubble residue to evade satellite detection.
In the meeting, union environment minister Yadav called for the need to intensify ground-level monitoring and enforcement measures to prevent stubble burning, with special monitoring required in the key districts of Sangrur, Tarn Taran, Amritsar, Patiala, and Gurdaspur in Punjab and Kaithal, Karnal, Kurukshetra, Ambala, and Fatehabad in Haryana – to assess crop harvesting trends. Another study by ISRO scientists had noted a similar trend. Referring to data from September 15 to October 12, he said that while there has been a significant reduction of 53.3% in the incidents of stubble burning in Haryana and around 32% in Uttar Pradesh as compared to last year, however high cases in both Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh were a cause of concern – asking both states to identify affected districts and villages and immediately implement a special action plan. One such study, released by the environmental think tank the International Forum for Environment, Sustainability and Technology (iFOREST) in December 2025, found this was true in both Punjab and Haryana, with most fires observed after 3 pm—hours when the government’s monitoring systems were simply not capturing data.
Yadav has also stressed the need to link stubble burning data with the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) and the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) for effective monitoring, adding it was important to provide forecasts of likely harvest times in the coming days and monitor meteorological conditions affecting air pollution levels in the National Capital Region ( NCR ) so that necessary action can be taken accordingly.
“The environment minister has emphasised that monitoring should not rely solely on satellite data and has asked district collectors to conduct on-the-ground assessments and strengthen enforcement action to make efforts to curb crop residue burning more effective,” said the Ministry in a statement. “We observe a gradual temporal shift between 2021 and 2024, with peak fire activity occurring around 5 PM IST in 2024… At the same time, the window of fire activity narrowed substantially, suggesting an informed adjustment by farmers to avoid detection by polar-orbiting sensors,” the study, published in Current Science in November last year, had said.
