New Delhi: The Punjab government has issued detailed instructions for the police and state administration asking them to crack down on the farmers who continue to burn paddy straw. This comes after the number of farm fires in a single day in the state crossed the 2,000 mark on November 8 (Wednesday).According to the Tribune, the government has said that FIRs will be registered against those in violation of the law.Punjab has reported nearly 23,000 cases of farm fires this season and till November 6, 18 FIRs under Section 188 of the IPC ((disobedience to order promulgated by a public servant) were registered, the report said.The highest number of farm fires on Wednesday were recorded in Sangrur, where chief minister Bhagwant Mann and three of his ministers hail from. Despite the 466 cases reported in the district yesterday, no FIRs have been registered in Sangrur.Chief secretary Anurag Verma has asked district magistrates, commissioners of police and senior superintendents of police (SSPs) to jointly hold a review meeting on the issue after daily updates on farm fires adding that action will be taken against the station house officer (SHO) in-charge of an area if stubble burning takes place in their jurisdiction.It has also been decided that erring farmers will be told that FIRs will be registered as burning of stubble is violative of law, the Tribune report said.Among the set of 12 instructions issued yesterday, police patrol parties headed by SHOs have been asked to go on rounds and prevent stubble burning. District magistrates and SSPs have also been asked to conduct regular field visits themselves.Meanwhile, general secretary of the Bharatiya Kisan Union (Dakunda), Jagmohan Singh, said, “Around 5 lakh farmers across the state had applied for the crop residue management (CRM) machines on the subsidised rates but only 25,000 could get it. This huge gap between availability of CRM machines and demand has forced the farmers to burn stubble.”“We don’t want to burn the stubble either. But we don’t have any other option in this regard. There is a huge gap in the demand and supply of CRM machines. The pressure of planting new crop is also there as any delay might affect wheat yield,” a farmer, on the condition of anonymity fearing action from the district administration, told the Hindustan Times.