Ahead of the upcoming harvest season, the Centre on Wednesday asked the governments of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and Delhi to strive for achieving zero stubble burning and also promised all help to achieve the “noble mission”. Paddy straw burning in Punjab and Haryana after the harvest is one of the major reasons for an alarming spike in air pollution levels in the national capital in October and November every year.
Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Narendra Singh Tomar reviewed the preparedness of states for the management of paddy stubble burning and said that the concerned states must effectively utilize Rs 600 crore made available to them this fiscal to achieve the desired goals.
According to a release by the Ministry of Agriculture, Tomar further said that the states need to ensure effective utilization of 2.07 lakh machines already supplied during the last four years.
“Rs 600 crore was already provided to the states this financial year and they have the unspent amount of Rs 300 crore, which should be utilized properly. Moreover, about two lakh machines have been made available to the states. The Centre and the concerned states should jointly evolve a long-term planning and must undertake multi-pronged activities to achieve the target of zero stubble burning within a specified time-frame,” Tomar said.
He took a high-level review meeting with the officials of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi governments, officers of the Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare and Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), on the actions taken/proposed to be taken by the states for management of stubble burring during this year.
Tomar told the officials of the states to strengthen and widen the IEC activities to make aware the farmers that stubble burning leads to loss of soil fertility in the long run, like the overuse of urea and also urged the officials to make arrangements to take the farmers to the sites, where the Pusa Decomposer developed by the ICAR is being used for practical demonstrations.
During the current year, provisions have also been incorporated to promote the use of bio-decomposer technology on large scale in these states.
For effective control of paddy stubble burning, the minister directed that the states to chalk out a comprehensive action plan at micro level, establish a mechanism to ensure effective utilization of machines, promote use of bio-decomposer in a complimentary mode with the CRM machines, promote ex-situ utilization of straw by way of mapping demand from adjoining industries like biomass based power plants, bioethanol plants etc. and take up IEC activities for mass awareness among farmers through intensive campaigns, the ministry of agriculture said.
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