Punjab: Govt Allocates ₹500 Crore To Combat Stubble Burning Ahead Of Paddy Harvest Season

Chandigarh: In a bid to check the cases of stubble burning in the state, the Punjab government has laid out an action plan of Rs 500 crore for providing machinery and other measures during the upcoming paddy harvest season.

Punjab agriculture and farmers welfare minister Gurmeet Singh Khudian said in a statement that the department had received as many as 21,511 applications from farmers, cooperative societies, farmers, producers organisations (FPOs) and the panchayats interested in availing subsidies on various crop residue management (CRM) machinery during the upcoming kharif season 2024 and farmers have applied for 63,697 machines.

He said that the individual farmers could also avail 50% subsidy on the cost of CRM equipment, while, 80% subsidy was for cooperative societies, FPOs, panchayats limited to a maximum as per the guidelines of the scheme, he added.

Under the scheme, he said that super SMS, super seeder, surface seeder, smart seeder, happy seeder, paddy straw chopper, shredder, mulcher, hydraulic reversible mould board plough and zero till drill for in-situ management and baler and rake in ex-situ machines were being made available on subsidy.

According to the minister, as many as 1,30,000 CRM machines had been provided to farmers of the state from 2018-19 to 2023. Khudian further held that the Agriculture department would also launch an information education and communication campaign to educate and train farmers about the available technologies for the management of crop residues as the state government is taking every possible step to address the problem of stubble burning.

Sown in June-July in most of the 23 districts of the state, the winter (kharif) paddy is harvested in November-December and the paddy straw (stubble) burning is one of the main contributors to the severe air pollution in the national capital region (NCR). This practice also severely affects the fertility qualities of the soil of the fields.

Pertinently, the farmers opt to burn the paddy straw to clear off their fields as they find a very short period between paddy harvesting and sowing of the next crop - wheat. Another reason for the farmers to opt this practice is that unlike the straw management course, burning paddy straw does not cost them anything, hence the quick and cheapest way to get rid of it.