The Haryana Government has suspended 24 officials of its agriculture department for failing to take adequate steps to curb stubble burning, a major source of air pollution in the state and the National Capital Region.
The suspended officials include agriculture development officers, agriculture supervisors, agriculture inspectors and agriculture supervisors in nine districts—Panipat, Jind, Hisar, Karnal, Kaithal, Ambala, Fatehabad, Kurukshetra and Sonipat.
On Monday, the air quality index in Kurukshetra touched 423 while at least 14 other cities in the state recorded an AQI above 300. These were Hisar (315), Ballabgarh (312), Bahadurgarh (336), Gurugram (369), Faridabad (307), Charkhi Dadri (313), Kaithal (329), Panchkula (304), Jind (364), Karnal (295), Rohtak (322), Panipat (315), Sirsa (313) and Yamunanagar (349).
Measures under the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) have been implemented across the NCR, which also covers Haryana’s Faridabad, Gurugram, Nuh, Rohtak, Sonipat, Rewari, Panipat, Palwal, Jhajjar, Charkhi Dadri, Mahendragarh, Bhiwani, Karnal and Jind districts.
The stage-2 restrictions came a week after the Commission for Air Quality Management imposed stage-1 measures, which included curbs on construction activities. The health department has advised people to wear N-95 face masks.
The suspension orders were issued on October 20 by Rajnarayan Kaushik, Director of the Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare.