Government sanctions fund and subsidy to stop burning crop residue responsible for pollution

New Delhi, Aug 13: To deal with the pollution and smog in Delhi and National Capital Region on the onset of winter that becomes a crisis situation, Union Agriculture ministry has decided to provide funds to purchase machines to deal with the burning of agriculture biomass residue or crop residue (in local parlance it is called Parali) that has been majorly responsible for pollution. The matter was so highlighted that the PMO had to get involved into it.

Sources in the ministry said that the Delhi government under the leadership Aam Aadmi Party has been making this an issue by saying that neighbouring states that is UP, Haryana and Punjab have been responsible for this pollution due to burning of the residue of crops. So much so that the Supreme Court of India had to intervene into the matter and even experiments like experiment of allowing odd and even number of private vehicles on odd and even days was applied by the Delhi government but of no avail.

Sources said that the Union agriculture ministry has decided to provided Rs 149 crore to the Uttar Pradesh government, Rs 269 crore to the Punjab government, Rs 148 crore to the Haryana government and Rs 5 crore to the Delhi government to facilitate farmers to buy machine that turns these residue of crop into smaller pieces which automatically turn into mannure after it is mixed into soil.

Actually removal of paddy stalk from the field is a labour-intensive process with the major crisis of agricultural labour and time factor for preparing field for the next crop limited, the only options that the farmer has left with burning the residue right on the field.

The sources said that these machine will do its work and the tiny crop residue will be mixed with the soil reducing the burden of farmer on fertilizers as they will turn into natural manure. The government has also provided subsidy to farmers to buy these machines. As per the government information, if a farmer purchases the machine individually he will be given 50 per cent subsidy on the purchase of the machine and if five to seven farmers are buying it collectively the subsidy will go up to 80 per cent.

Sources said that this is a big government move to deal with a crisis that has been plaguing not only farmers of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab but over 2.5 crore residents of Delhi/NCR which becomes a major heath concern and even the visibility goes down to dangerous level. For farmers removing these residue of crop was an extra financial burden that they were unable to afford so they were burning them in the field only.

This burning of residue of crop has been causing huge pollution in Delhi and National capital region and several inter-governmantal meeting also took place but the concern of farmer was also genuine so was redidence of Delhi/NCR. So The government has come up with this idea to use technology to deal with this problem.