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As Delhi and much of north ভারত prepare for another winter under a blanket of polluted air, the scale of one of the region's biggest sources of seasonal pollution may be far greater than official figures suggest. In Punjab, where governments have repeatedly claimed prog...

As Delhi and much of north ভারত prepare for another winter under a blanket of polluted air, the scale of one of the region's biggest sources of seasonal pollution may be far greater than official figures suggest. In Punjab, where governments have repeatedly claimed progress in the fight against stubble burning, the number of farm fires recorded by official agencies stands at 4,459 this season. But satellite-based research by a NASA scientist suggests that the actual figure could be several times higher.। Dr Hiren Jethva, an aerosol remote sensing scientist associated with Morgan State University and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre, stated that his calculations showed 34,000 farm fires in Punjab and Haryana between October 1 and November 9 this year. The estimate is dramatically higher than the 4,459 incidents recorded by the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) up to Sunday.। The satellites traditionally used by সরকার agencies are missing a growing proportion of fires because farmers have gradually shifted the time at which they burn agricultural residue.।

23. Fire summary (Oct. 1–Nov 9) Punjab+Haryana 🛰️ NOAA-20 VIIRS (375 m): 4,089 fires near 1:30 p.m. LT 🛰️ Aqua MODIS (1 km): 4,196 fires near 4 p.m. LT 🔥 After empirical adjustment to VIIRS 375 m fire-count baseline, the total reaches to ~34,000 fires--a conservative estimate। According to the CAQM's report covering the period up to November 8, Punjab recorded 4,459 incidents of stubble burning this season.। Physical inspections were carried out at 2,998 of these locations, with evidence of stubble burning confirmed at 1,310 sites. Compensation was imposed in 1,228 cases, with fines totalling Rs 62.55 lakh. Of this amount, Rs 32.60 lakh has been recovered.।

According to a report by the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) covering the period up to November 8, 2026, a total of 4,459 incidents of stubble burning have been recorded in Punjab. Physical inspections were conducted at 2,998 of these sites, with evidence of stubble burning confirmed at 1,310 locations. The report indicates that environmental compensation has been imposed in 1,228 of these cases. A total fine of Rs 62.55 lakh has been levied, of which Rs 32.60 lakh has already been recovered. Furthermore, 884 FIRs have been registered under Section 223 of BNS, and 'red entries' have been made in the land records of 1,017 farms. Additionally, prosecution proceedings have been initiated against 18 nodal officers under Section 14 of the CAQM Act. At the district level, Tarn Taran has প্রতিবেদনে জানানো হয়েছে the highest number of stubble-burning incidents, with 654 cases. This is followed by Ferozepur with 592 cases, Sangrur with 488, Bathinda with 406, and Patiala with 288. Evidence of stubble burning was found at 306 locations in Tarn Taran and 247 locations in Ferozepur.। At the district level in Punjab, Tarn Taran প্রতিবেদনে জানানো হয়েছে the highest number of incidents, with 654 cases, followed by Ferozepur with 592, Sangrur with 488, Bathinda with 406 and Patiala with 288.। But these official figures stand in sharp contrast to Jethva's satellite-based calculations. Speaking on NDTV's Left, Right and Centre on November 5, he had said his latest assessment, based on observations from the Aqua MODIS satellite and converted to the higher-resolution VIIRS fire dataset, had identified 27,000 fires in Punjab between October 1 and November 5.।

Thick cloud of smoke engulfs Punjab and northern ভারত on November 9, 2026.Photo Credit: NASA Worldview। "My most up-to-date calculations this morning, based on the AQUA MODIS satellite, which is in the free-drifting orbit and is now overpassing Punjab and North ভারত about 4 pm, because it is in the free-drifting mode," Jethva told NDTV last week. "Before the overpass time was 1:30 pm. Now it is 4 pm. So MODIS is able to see those fires and if we convert those fires to high-resolution VIIRS, my numbers this morning, just before this meeting, up to now, from October 1 to November 5, we have seen 27,000 fires in Punjab."। The official farm fire counts are primarily based on observations from three polar-orbiting satellites -- Terra, Aqua and Suomi-NPP. They use two principal instruments, MODIS and VIIRS, whose fire-detection data is publicly available through NASA's WorldView platform.।

The satellites observe Punjab and Haryana at particular times during the day and night. Terra traditionally passes over the region at around 10.30 am, while Aqua and Suomi-NPP have observation windows around 1:30 pm and 1:30 am, respectively.। These satellites capture thermal signatures of fires during their passes. The problem, Jethva says, is that the timing of agricultural burning has gradually moved beyond the window in which the satellites can reliably detect it.। 6. A visual evidence of late-afternoon burning on both sides of the border. #Terra and #Aqua both are drifting from their original orbital configurations, overpassing earlier and later than ~10:30 am and ~1:30 pm. Drifting #Aqua allows MODIS to see lately occurring fires. https://t.co/l4NoLyuEO6।

Farmers who once burned paddy residue around midday have increasingly shifted the activity towards the late afternoon, particularly between 4 pm and 5 pm. Fires that start after the afternoon satellite passes may have already burned out by the time another satellite observes the region.। "I see the same pattern from using the satellite data. I see the same pattern of the late afternoon burning around 4 and 5 pm that we have seen in the last couple of years, like 2024, 2025. And there's this big fuzz about counting the numbers from the different satellite data," Jethva told NDTV.। Explaining the limitations of the existing system, he said NASA and NOAA's MODIS and VIIRS satellite observations had been widely used by সরকার agencies and researchers across the world.।

"Up to 2021, since the majority of fires were taking place between 1 to 2 pm, the satellites could able to see the large part of the bulk of the burning activity. But beginning in 2022, that time window for the peak burning has been shifted gradually to late afternoon, first like 2 pm, then 3 pm, and now 4 and 5 pm, that we can clearly see in the geostationary data," he told NDTV.। Satellite map showing fires in Punjab and northern ভারত.Photo Credit: FIRMS Fire Information for Resource Management System, NASA। "Most of these সরকার agencies rely on the NASA and NOAA satellite to gauge the statistics of the fire counts. But now those data sets are no more reliable because we are in a completely different fire region," he added.।

Jethva said the problem was that the majority of fires were now taking place during a period when the satellites traditionally used for official monitoring were not observing the region.। "Most of the majority of the fires are taking place in the late afternoon. And these satellites overpass around 1.30 pm, so it's not telling us the totality of the fire," he said.। He also explained why the fires could go undetected even during subsequent satellite passes.।

"Typically, these fires last for like a few hours, four, five, or maybe five to six hours. But by the time next the satellite overpasses around 10.30 am, that is Terra, and 1.30 pm, Aqua, those fires are like gone," he said. "We can still see that signal in the other data set, like the surface signal that we calculate different kinds of vegetation indices. We can see that."। A report by the International Forum for Environment, Sustainability and তথ্যপ্রযুক্তি (iFOREST) explains that MODIS and VIIRS identify fires through thermal anomalies, but their spatial resolution and limited observation windows can result in significant undercounting.। "Satellite-borne sensors such as the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) detect fire incidents based on thermal anomalies. However, their coarse spatial resolutions (1 km for MODIS and 375 m for VIIRS) and limited revisits (four observations a day combined from MODIS and VIIRS) result in many missed fires," the report says.।

The Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) has also highlighted the problem. In a report, it said that monitoring of crop residue burning currently depends on active fire counts from polar-orbiting satellites, which have spatial resolutions of 375 metres and one kilometre. Consequently, they cannot capture fires in areas smaller than 375 metres by 375 metres.। The satellites also visit the same region only twice during daytime, making them likely to miss fires started outside their observation windows.। The CEEW report cites an Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) study that identified a shift in peak stubble-burning time from 1:30 pm to 5 pm over recent years.।

Punjab witnessed a sharp surge in stubble-burning incidents during the ongoing paddy harvesting season on Diwali.Photo Credit: IANS। A separate CEEW survey, released on October 28 this year, examined the practices of 1,588 farmers in Haryana and found that four in five farmers who remove paddy straw through baling or use it as fodder intended to continue doing so in 2026.। The survey was conducted between January and March 2026 across 144 villages in 12 districts, accounting for approximately 92 per cent of Haryana's kharif fires between 2018 and 2024.।

The study, titled Mitigating Stubble Burning in Haryana, found that farmers were using three methods to manage crop residue -- 39 per cent used it as fodder, 38 per cent sold or removed it through baling, and 32 per cent incorporated it into the soil using machines such as Super Seeders.। Only 6 per cent of respondents admitted to burning residue, although researchers cautioned that this figure was likely underreported. Meanwhile, 26 per cent said farmers in their villages continued to burn stubble.। On peak days in late October and early November, stubble burning can contribute as much as 40 per cent of Delhi's daily PM2.5 pollution, according to the CEEW assessment.।

Research published in The Lancet Planetary Health in December 2020, as part of the ভারত State-Level Disease Burden Initiative involving the Indian Council of Medical Research, estimated that 1.67 million deaths in ভারত in 2019 were attributable to air pollution.। That accounted for 17.8 per cent of all deaths in the country that year.। The study found that most of these deaths were linked to "ambient particulate matter" pollution, which accounted for approximately 9,80,000 deaths, and household air pollution, responsible for another 6,10,000.।

Air pollution in Patiala reached alarming levels following Diwali, with the city's Air Quality Index (AQI) touching 499, placing it in the severe category.Photo Credit: IANS। Between 1990 and 2019, the death rate associated with household air pollution fell by 64.2 per cent, while the death rate from ambient particulate matter pollution rose by 115.3 per cent. Deaths linked to ambient ozone pollution increased by 139.2 per cent.। The State of Global Air 2025 report, released in October 2025 by the Health Effects Institute and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in the যুক্তরাষ্ট্র, estimated that approximately two million deaths in ভারত in 2023 were linked to air pollution.।

That represented a 43 per cent increase from the 1.4 million deaths estimated in 2000, equivalent to 186 deaths per 1,00,000 people.।