Farmers defiant, govt faces heat over stubble burning

Amarjit Thind

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 3

The stage is set for a major confrontation between the state government and farmer outfits on the issue of stubble burning with both parties citing fiscal stress on this burning issue. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) will hear the case tomorrow.

Senior officials, requesting anonymity, said the state was in a bind as they did not have money to even provide incentive to farmers on its own. The same was true of other conservation agriculture (CA) measures suggested by farm experts, they said.

The directive of the NGT for penalising farmers by making a red entry (violation of a law/directive) in the land records of the defaulters might aggravate the situation. The indebted farmers would not take it kindly, they opined.

Punjab Pollution Control Board chairperson KS Pannu said they were on the job. He said he today interacted with scores of farmers in Amritsar district who had not been burning stubble. The sustained campaign exhorting farmers to desist from doing so was a success, he claimed.

“We are taking the help from the National Remote Sensing Agency in locating villages and fields where stubble is being burnt. The directives of the government and the NGT will be followed in letter and spirit,” he added.

BKU chief BS Rajewal, meanwhile, said farmers would burn stubble. In case they were stopped by the authorities or the police, they would gherao police stations and government offices, he warned.

On NGT directives, he said while the state was bent on penalising them, they were ignoring another direction that the small and marginal farmers be given happy seeders, rotavators and straw choppers free of cost.

The indebted farmers were in no position to pay Rs 6,000 per acre needed to dispose straw in an eco-friendly manner,” he said, adding that the much-touted debt waiver assurance too had proved to be a mirage so far.

CM seeks Rs 2,000 cr for straw mgmt

New Delhi: Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh sought financial help from the Union Government at the rate of Rs 100 per quintal for paddy straw management to curb burning of the paddy residue by the farmers. During his meeting with Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh on Tuesday, he pitched for a total compensation of Rs 2,000 crore in this regard. He clarified that he had urged the minister to provide Rs 100 per quintal on the procurement of paddy as an incentive to dissuade farmers from burning stubble. TNS