The Punjab Government is ready to Control stubble burning as the harvesting of early maturing Basmati rice variety, Pusa 1509 and other crops are set to begin in a few days.
The state agriculture department already received more than 1 lakh applications for stubble management machines that the government provides under Crop Residue Management (CRM) scheme. In addition, this year, nodal officials for every village have also been appointed across Punjab.
Sources said that Punjab has 90,422 stubble management machines, including about 35,000 happy seeder and super seeder machines. This year nearly 32,000 machines will be distributed by providing around Rs.450 Crore subsidy.
Dr Gurvinder Singh, Director of the agriculture department said that minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal has started the Information Education Communication (IEC) campaign, through which we will tell people about the detrimental effects of stubble burning on the environment, soil, human health etc.
He continued by saying that many farmers do not burn their crop residue and get excellent outcomes for the succeeding crops.
According to Jagdish Singh, Joint Director of Agriculture (engineering wing), "Farmers youth and women will all be included in our physical and social media campaigns.”
Despite the fact that the state has over 90,000 machines, he said that there is still a significant need for them. Every farmer needs stubble management machinery during the peak 25-day period of harvesting and stubble burning since this is when he must sow the next crop on time. Considering this, there aren't enough machines to manage the stubble of 3 million hectares of rice land. The state produces nearly 20 million tonnes of paddy stubble.
A senior officer in the agriculture department said that to manage stubble, the state needs over 1.5 lakh machines.
Paddy stubble was burned on 15.47 lakh hectares in 2021, 17.96 lakh hectares in 2022, 18.95 lakh hectares in 2019, 17.81 lakh hectares in 2018, and 19.78 lakh hectares in 2017, according to the Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB). Stubble burning cases in these years were 50,841 in 2017, 51,751 in 2018, 53,149 in 2019, 76,929 in 2020, and 71,304 in 2021.
Nine districts—Sangur, Patiala, Ludhiana, Tarn Taran, Moga, Gurdaspur, Ferozepur, Jalandhara, and Amritsar—are big defaulters, according to experts from Punjab Agriculture University (PAU) Ludhiana, and if the government can concentrate on these, more than 80% of fire incidences may be controlled.
