It is raining ashes in farmlands of Jalandhar. Ignoring the warnings by the Punjab government and state Pollution Control Board, farmers are burning wheat stubbles leading to a rain of ashes across farms.
It is also causing respiratory and eye related problems while adversely affecting fertility of the soil, according to experts.
"The burning of crop residue causes the ash rains which has adverse effects on our body and also reduces soil fertility," Chief Agriculture Officer Inderjit Singh said.
"Smoke, containing Nitrogen oxide and Carbon monoxide, is being inhaled by locals. It affects lungs and eyes," a tuberculosis (TB) expert said, adding elders, children are the worst affected. It can be fatal for asthma patients.
"Farmers get around one month between harvesting wheat and sowing paddy. That is why they don't think twice before putting a matchstick to residue littered all over their field," an official in Agriculture Department said.
Experts believe that stubble burning is the least-costly option available to the cultivators, while the straw management methods recommended by the state authorities are time consuming. They instead suggested using the residue as fertilizer.
"When the soil is upturned by ploughing the field, the stubble would go inside the earth and would later become compost, an organic fertiliser," they said.
