Punjab Agriculture Minister Randeep Singh Nabha has appealed to all farmers, cooperatives, and panchayats who have been sanctioned to purchase machinery to present all machines for physical verification on November 1, 2021 at all Block Agricultural Officers' offices or specified alternate venues.
Once the machines have been validated, the procedure for releasing subsidies will begin immediately. He further stated that the subsidy will be distributed to farmers' or cooperatives' bank accounts in accordance with the scheme's parameters.
He also urged Scheduled Castes, Panchayats, and Cooperatives farmers to apply for paddy residue management equipment through the department's website. Department officials will assist you in submitting applications via the site if you have any difficulties. The role of panchayats and cooperatives in providing machinery to small, marginal, and SC farmers is critical.
Farmers have been instructed not to burn paddy straw and instead use equipment made accessible to Cooperative Societies and Panchayats, as well as other Custom Hiring Centres around the state. Other solutions, such as bio decomposers and direct seeding of wheat, are available to farmers, he added.
According to Nabha, the Punjab Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare Department has already approved 10297 applications for the purchase of 31970 agri-machines/ equipments under the Crop Residue Management (CRM) scheme for providing agri-machinery to farmers during the paddy harvesting season, received from PACS, Panchayats, CHCs registered under Farmers Societies and individual farmers to combat the menace of stubble burning. Individual farmers will receive 10023 machines, CHCs will receive 15498 machines, Panchayats will receive 5543 machines, and PACS will receive 906 machines.
The Punjab government has focused on delivering state-of-the-art machines to farmers under the CRM scheme, such as the Super SMS, Super Seeder, Happy Seeder, Paddy Straw Chopper/Shredder/Mulcher, Hydraulic Reversible Mould Board Plough, and Zero Till Drill for in-situ management, and the Baler and Rake as ex-situ machines on subsidy for farmers' convenience.
Farmers have received 76,626 paddy straw management equipment on subsidy in the previous three years, according to Nabha. Patiala, Sangrur, Barnala, Bathinda, Ferozepur, Sri Muktsar Sahib, Tarn Taran, Moga, Ludhiana, and Mansa, he added, have also been identified as hotspot areas, where the majority of paddy stubble burning instances had previously been reported.
He stated that the Department of Agriculture is conducting a special campaign in villages through training camps, various types of competitions among school children to raise awareness about stubble burning; training is being provided for better machine use; and thought-provoking messages have been posted on prominent walls. To get the message to the farthest corners of each district, special Display Vans are being employed.
The state government has also established a special task force for enforcement and regulatory actions in these areas, according to the Minister, to guarantee that stubble burning events do not occur during the upcoming rice harvesting season. Farmers are urged to seek assistance from Nodal Officers in obtaining equipment from CHCs and to utilize the I-khet machine App created in collaboration with the Punjab Remote Sensing Centre.
All machines purchased by CHCs and individual farmers are mapped with the I-khet machine, and anybody may learn about paddy residue management equipment accessible within a 5-to-25-kilometer radius, he noted.
