A senior Agriculture Ministry official KAP Sinha on Friday suggested increasing baler capacity, deploying more machinery in high stubble burning areas and involving cooperative societies in Delhi and surrounding states.
Addressing a workshop 'Paddy straw management and action plans' organised in Ludhiana, Sinha acknowledged the desire to eliminate the practice of paddy straw burning but identified obstacles hindering progress.
"Further, he proposed increasing baler capacity, deploying more machinery in high-burning areas, involving cooperative societies to support SC beneficiaries, and replicating successful initiatives," an official statement quoted Sinha as saying at the workshop.
Sinha, who is an additional secretary in the Union Agriculture Ministry, expressed hope that there will be no stubble-burning incidents next year.
The workshop was organised along with Punjab Agriculture University (PAU) and the state government.
PAU Vice-Chancellor Satbir Singh Gosal cautioned that stubble burning emits toxic pollutants, which disperse in the surroundings and eventually, affect the air quality and people’s health as well as soil health.
He advocated the concept of conservation agriculture which up-cycles paddy straw without producing any waste. He called for synergy among the Department of Agriculture, NGOs, academia, industry and farmers to tackle the menace of paddy straw burning.
S Rukhmani, Joint Secretary in the Union Agriculture Ministry, said there is a reduction of 30-40 per cent in paddy straw burning since last year and emphasised the workshop’s goal of creating a value-chain plan to utilise paddy straw as a resource and minimise losses for farmers.
She also briefed about a central scheme that is in place to support crop residue management.
The scheme provides financial assistance of 50 per cent for farmers to purchase designated machinery and 80 per cent for Cooperative Societies, Farmers' Producers Organizations (FPOs) and Panchayats to establish Custom Hiring Centres (CHCs).
Senior officers from the Centre and state agriculture department, Krishi Vigyan Kendras, stakeholders in the central government, state governments of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and NCR of Delhi were present in the workshop.
Representatives of State Pollution Control Boards, Indian Council of Agricultural Research, various stakeholder agencies, social groups and NGOs, agricultural machinery manufacturing industries and biomass industry associations and more than 300 farmers participated in the workshop.
