As North India, including Delhi-NCR, gasps for breath due to pollution, Pakistan has emerged as a major contributor to this menace. With air directed towards us, it has seemingly become enemy number one, with stubble-burning incidents increasing sharply, 4.2 times that of Indian Punjab. This pertains to the first 29 days of October, and the situation may worsen.
The city woke up to hazy skies and poor visibility, with a thick blanket of pollution smog shrouding several parts of the national Capital. Delhi recorded its worst air quality in 287 days on Tuesday, with the Air Quality Index (AQI) settling at 348 and 10 monitoring stations reporting severe pollution levels, against 324 on November 2 and 261 on November 1. A forecast suggests stubble burning will contribute a growing share to the city’s PM2.5 pollution over the next three days.
Delhi’s AQI stood at 324 on November 2 and 261 on November 1, indicating deteriorating air quality over the last two days. The last time the national Capital recorded a higher AQI was on January 20, when the index stood at 378. Of the 57 air quality monitoring stations in the city, 10 recorded severe air quality, 35 reported very poor levels, and 12 were in the poor category. Jahangirpuri recorded the worst air quality, with an AQI of 462, placing it in the severe category.
Satellite data shows that fire counts in Pakistan’s Punjab are unusually high this year. Crop-fire detections in Pakistan’s Punjab are 4.2 times higher than in Indian Punjab during the first 29 days of October. The findings are based on NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS), which uses satellite instruments to detect active fires.
Meteorologists say northwesterly winds are currently blowing across the region, creating a pathway for the smoke from crop fires in Pakistan to travel across Punjab, Haryana, and Delhi-NCR. Moreover, relatively low wind speeds are making it difficult for the pollutants to disperse.
The landlocked geography of the northern plains also adds to the problem, trapping pollutants closer to the ground.
As per the data, Pakistan’s Punjab recorded 13,241 stubble burning incidents between October 1 and 29. In comparison, Indian Punjab recorded 1612 detections during the same period. Most were concentrated in the rice-growing belt around Lahore. As a result, Lahore ranked as the world’s most polluted city on November 2.
An analysis found that satellite-detected crop fires in Indian Punjab fell by 95% between 2021 and 2025. In Pakistan, however, it increased by 33% between 2019 and 2025.
Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav on Tuesday highlighted several measures implemented since September to curb Delhi-NCR’s air pollution, including a decline in stubble burning incidents in Punjab and Haryana, even as the national capital’s air quality deteriorated further to the ‘very poor’ category. Yadav told the reporters that from September 15 to November 1, Punjab reported 1,514 fire counts against 2,084 incidents in 2025, a decline of 38 per cent, while Haryana recorded 42 against 118, marking a decline of 64 per cent.
According to data from the Consortium for Research on Agroecosystem Monitoring and Modelling from Space (CREAMS) Lab, Division of Agricultural Physics, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute,
Satellites detected 219 farm fire incidents across six states on November 2, including 98 in Punjab, 67 in Rajasthan, 48 in Madhya Pradesh, four in Uttar Pradesh and two in Haryana. No residue-burning events were detected in Delhi or Uttarakhand, according to data from the Consortium for Research on Agroecosystem Monitoring and Modelling from Space (CREAMS) Lab, Division of Agricultural Physics, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute. As many as 3,535 farm fire incidents were detected across the six states between September 15 and November 2. Punjab accounted for the highest number of incidents at 1,612, followed by Rajasthan (738), Madhya Pradesh (614), Uttar Pradesh (349), Uttarakhand (176), Haryana (44) and Delhi (two).
During the corresponding period in 2020, 51,822 incidents were detected across the States and regions covered by the bulletin. The count fell to 24,583 in 2021 and 26,490 in 2022, then declined to 18,991 in 2023, 9,668 in 2024, and 4,993 in 2025. Punjab, which continues to account for the highest number of farm fires this season, recorded 1,612 incidents till November 2, compared with 2,262 during the corresponding period last year and 41,176 in 2020. Haryana also recorded a sharp decline, with 44 incidents this season against 122 in 2025 and 2,606 in 2020.
The data, compiled using satellite remote sensing under the standard protocol for estimating crop residue-burning fire events, indicates a sustained reduction in detected incidents compared with previous years, even as farm fires continue to contribute to Delhi’s particulate pollution during the post-harvest season. The stubble-burning period runs from September 15 to November 30. Delhi recorded its first farm-fire incident of the season on September 19, and the second on October 24.