In line with the Supreme Court’s advice, Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Tuesday suggested the Punjab governmnt to follow measures as adopted by his government in order to manage the longstanding issue of farm fires. He also urged against politicising the issue while disagreeing with Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s comments on the issue.

“The (Supreme Court) Statement, especially where they said that Punjab Government should learn from Haryana, it is clear that the Government of Punjab has not given much attention to this issue and adopt the measures that they should have… In Haryana, we are providing every kind of help to the farmers so that they don’t burn stubble and they have stopped too. I thank the farmers of Haryana that they stopped it… These are not the topics of politics. The CM of Delhi should also understand this. The political statements made by him are not appropriate,” Khattar said while calling for a collective approach in dealing with the issue.

The Haryana CM’s statement came after the Supreme Court lambasted at the Punjab government for failing to manage burning of stubble, one of the factors of air pollution in Delhi-NCR, while observing that farmers are being made a villain as they are not being heard in the court.

“Why doesn’t the Punjab government make the process of crop residue 100% free? To burn it, all the farmer needs to do is light a matchstick. Machine for the management of crop residue to farmers is not everything. Even if the machine is given for free, there is diesel cost, manpower, etc…The state of Punjab should also take a cue from the state of Haryana in the manner in which financial incentives are given,” the court said.

Responding to Khattar’s statement, Punjab minister Harpal Singh Cheema accused Haryana of increased stubble burning, whereas, defending his government for bringing down the cases of farm fires by 70%.

Recalling the period of green revolution, Cheema said Punjab provided for the country when there was a scarcity of crop production. “And now the ground water level in the state has gone down, giving rise to an imminent problem for the state…Why is the Centre not helping farmers?,” the Punjab minister asked, adding, “Haryana CM Khattar should stop doing politics on this and should stand with the farmers.”

Notably, Punjab reported a total of 513 incidents of farm fires on Tuesday, a sharp jump from year-on-year data on the same day, which was 168 in 2021 and 243 in 2022. This year, the total number of such incidents reached over 35,500 since September 15.

Earlier, Haryana AAP vice-president Anurag Dhanda alleged the Khattar-government of ‘managing’ the number of farm fire incidents instead of actually addressing the issue.