Bathinda: Crop residue burning spiked in Haryana and Punjab on Monday, with both states recording their highest single-day counts of the ongoing wheat harvest season. While Haryana logged 345 new cases, the figure was 225 in Punjab.
With the surge, Haryana's tally for the season crossed 700, while Punjab's count neared 500. Until Sunday, Punjab's highest single-day count was 72, indicating a sharp rise over the past week.
Across states, Madhya Pradesh continued to dominate, reporting 1,119 cases on Monday and pushing its seasonal tally close to 30,000. Uttar Pradesh recorded 409 cases.
Total farm fire incidents across five states rose to 43,623, with Madhya Pradesh alone accounting for over 68% (29,724 cases).
Data from Consortium for Research on Agroecosystem Monitoring and Modeling from Space shows that Madhya Pradesh has also contributed over 51% of all crop burning cases in the past five years. Of 2.42 lakh cases recorded between 2022 and April 27, 2026, 1.24 lakh were from the state, followed by Uttar Pradesh (58,648), Punjab (48,471), Haryana (10,497) and Delhi (136).
Vidisha district in Madhya Pradesh reported the highest count (3,689), while 59 districts across MP and UP recorded over 100 cases each.
Earlier, during the 2025 kharif season, Madhya Pradesh topped stubble burning with 17,067 cases, followed by Uttar Pradesh (7,290) and Punjab (5,114).
