A new multi-satellite analysis has challenged official claims of a nearly 90 per cent reduction in stubble burning in Punjab and Haryana, revealing that farmers have simply shifted the burning to late afternoon and evening hours to evade detection by India’s standard monitoring satellites. The Stubble Burning Status Report 2025, released by the International Forum for Environment, Sustainability and Technology (iFOREST) on Monday, used high-frequency geostationary satellite data to demonstrate that over 90 per cent of large fires in Punjab now occur after 3 pm – a timing window that falls outside the 10:30 am–1:30 pm overpass of the polar-orbiting satellites used by the government.

The official monitoring system, operated by the Indian Agricultural Research Institute’s CREAMS laboratory, relies primarily on NASA’s MODIS and Suomi-NPP VIIRS sensors, which capture only daytime fires during their narrow orbital window. iFOREST’s analysis of Europe’s SEVIRI geostationary satellite, which images the region every 15 minutes, confirmed a dramatic behavioural shift: in Punjab, only 3 per cent of large fires happened after 3 pm in 2021, but the figure soared above 90 per cent in 2024 and 2025. In Haryana, the majority of large fires have occurred post-3 pm consistently since 2019. “Our analysis provides incontrovertible evidence that India’s current monitoring system is structurally misaligned with ground realities,” said iFOREST CEO Chandra Bhushan.

Despite the undercounting of active fires, the report acknowledged genuine progress when measured by burnt-area mapping using Europe’s Sentinel-2 satellites – a more reliable metric that is not affected by timing. In Punjab, the total area burnt fell 37 per cent from its 2022 peak of 31,447 sq km to roughly 20,000 sq km in 2025, while Haryana recorded a 25 per cent decline from its 2019 high to 8,812 sq km this year. Bhushan described the 25–35 per cent reduction across both states as “good news” that reflects growing adoption of in-situ and ex-situ stubble management practices, but cautioned that nearly 30,000 sq km of paddy fields were still torched in 2025.

The findings have serious implications for air-quality policymaking in Delhi-NCR, where stubble smoke remains a major winter pollutant. iFOREST warned that flawed data is leading to systematic underestimation of farm-fire emissions in forecasting models and called for an urgent overhaul of the national monitoring protocol. The forum recommended that CREAMS immediately begin publishing burnt-area statistics alongside active fire counts, integrate geostationary satellite data for round-the-clock detection, and expand policy focus to emerging stubble-burning hotspots in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. “We cannot manage what we do not measure accurately,” stressed Ishaan Kochhar, iFOREST Programme Lead, adding that accurate measurement is essential to sustain progress and protect public health.