Chandigarh, Oct. 1 -- With the Supreme Court keeping a close watch and the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) cracking the whip, the Haryana government has decided to slap steep financial penalties on farmers found burning paddy stubble.

Not just this, first information reports (FIR) will be registered against the erring cultivators, and the red entries will be marked in their land records, barring them from selling crops in the next two seasons under the minimum support price (MSP).

These measures are part of a raft of punitive and preventive steps that Haryana has rolled out to curb farm fires and ensure that this illegal bi-annual practice does not sabotage the efforts being made to keep the air free from stubble smoke in t...