Published: 28 March 2026 | Author: Team JanVayu | Reading time: 4 min
Every October, as the kharif paddy harvest ends across Punjab and Haryana, farmers in the two states set fire to crop residue to clear their fields for winter wheat. Smoke drifts southeast across the Indo-Gangetic plain, and Delhi's air quality collapses. Governments announce crackdowns and satellite images circulate on social media. Meanwhile the timing of the fires has changed.
A NASA Earth Observatory feature (15 December 2025) reported that most stubble fires in Punjab and Haryana now happen between 4 PM and 6 PM. It cited a study in Current Science by scientists at ISRO's Space Applications Centre (Singh and colleagues, 2025) which found that peak fire activity moved from about 1:30 PM in 2020 to about 5:00 PM in 2024. The study's authors attribute the shift to farmers avoiding detection by polar-orbiting satellites, which pass over in the early afternoon.
The numbers
How big the problem is remains contested. Under the ISRO-IARI satellite monitoring protocol, Punjab recorded 10,207 wheat harvest fire events between 1 April and 31 May 2025, Haryana 1,832 and the NCR districts of Uttar Pradesh 259 (PIB, February 2026). Separately, the Environment Ministry told the Lok Sabha (16 March 2026) that Punjab and Haryana together recorded more than 90 percent fewer fire incidents in the 2025 paddy season than in the same period of 2022 (PIB).
The satellite counts are incomplete, though, because they include only fires burning at the moment a satellite passes over. The Current Science study used geostationary satellite data (MSG-SEVIRI), which watches continuously rather than at fixed passes. It warned that the shift in burning time could make fire counts and emissions come out much too low when monitoring relies only on polar-orbiting sensors (Singh et al., Current Science 129(10): 921-923, 2025).
What the government has done
The response has been costly. Between 2018-19 and 2025-26, the central government released Rs 4,237.47 crore to address crop residue burning. States distributed more than 3.53 lakh crop residue management machines to individual farmers and established over 43,535 Custom Hiring Centres where farmers can rent equipment to manage stubble without burning.
The Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM), the statutory body overseeing NCR air quality, has mandated state-level action plans for each burning season. After the 10,207 fire events recorded in the 2025 wheat season, CAQM ordered time-bound execution of revised plans for the 2026 cycle with stricter enforcement protocols.
The economics for farmers have not changed. A Happy Seeder, the main machine alternative to burning, costs roughly Rs 1.5 lakh, and a Super Seeder about Rs 2.5 lakh (Indian Express, 2019 and 2023). CAQM's Direction 96 (13 February 2026, on wheat residue) and Direction 99 (15 May 2026, on paddy residue) each tell the states to mandate rent-free availability of crop-residue machines for small and marginal farmers through Custom Hiring Centres (CAQM directions; ESG Times on Direction 96).
How much stubble burning contributes
Stubble burning's share of Delhi's winter pollution is well documented, and it is often overstated in public debate. NASA scientist Pawan Gupta estimates that stubble burning contributes 40 to 70 percent of Delhi's PM2.5 on a given day, 20 to 30 percent averaged over the burning season, and under 10 percent averaged over a year (NASA Earth Observatory, 15 December 2025). Over a year, other sources account for most of the pollution.
The difference matters for policy. Stubble burning is a seasonal source that gets more political and media attention than its yearly share justifies, partly because it starts in other states and lets Delhi's government point elsewhere. The capital's own pollution sources, which it controls, get less scrutiny.
In the peak weeks, though, the smoke is enough to push air quality from "very poor" to "severe" or "severe plus". That triggers GRAP Stage III and IV restrictions, school closures and construction bans.
What the timing shift shows
The timing shift documented by ISRO scientists and reported by NASA exposes a weakness in how the fires are policed. If the main monitoring tool can be beaten by waiting a few hours, enforcement that rests on it is fragile.
Better options include continuous monitoring from geostationary satellites (which India's INSAT fleet could in theory provide) and checks on the ground by patwaris and block-level officers. Incentives could make the alternatives cheaper than burning. The biggest pressure is the crop calendar, which leaves farmers a narrow window between harvest and sowing and no affordable way to clear the field in it.
India has spent over four thousand crore rupees and distributed hundreds of thousands of machines, and the fires have fallen sharply. Fewer fires do not mean the problem is solved. While burning stays the cheapest choice for millions of farmers, the fires will continue, at different hours.
Sources
- NASA Earth Observatory, New Timing for Stubble Burning
- Business Standard, How farmers outwit NASA satellites
- ESG Times, CAQM orders 2026 wheat stubble plan
- Singh, Pradhan, Shukla and Pandya, Current Science 129(10): 921-923, November 2025 (ISRO Space Applications Centre)
- PIB, fire events in the 2025 wheat season (CAQM, February 2026)
- PIB, more than 90 percent fewer fire incidents in the 2025 paddy season (press release of the Lok Sabha reply)
- Indian Express on the cost of seeders: 2019 and 2023
- Government of India, Rs 4,237 crore for stubble burning