Customer hiring centres, subsidy fail to boost management of paddy straw

Deepender Deswal

Hisar, October 28

Despite setting up 609 custom hiring centres (CHCs) and providing subsidies on related machines to 3,930 farmers, the paddy residue management seems unmanageable in Fatehabad district.

This district, which has about 3.25 lakh acres under paddy, reported the maximum number of farm fires — 157 out of the total 1,019 — in the state till today. The farmers and machine owners, however, cautioned that the incidents of stubble burning could increase drastically in the next few days as harvesting of late sown paddy was set to start.

The machine owners said most of the farmers were not going in for in-situ management of paddy straw and were demanding bailing machines.

Jaiveer Singh, a bailing machine owner who is also sarpanch of Manghera village in Fatehabad, said they had bailing machines but there were no purchasers for the bales. “I have been getting requests from 100 farmers daily for bailing machines that are lying idle with me. But there are no purchasers for the bales of the paddy residue, so how will I manage this,” he said.

Harpal Singh, another farmer, said the in-situ management of paddy residue affected the rabi crop. “It is not good for soil health and may cause disease in the rabi crops,” he said. Singh said the bailer machine owners were not showing interest as there was little demand for the bales from private purchasers.

Information gathered under an RTI plea on the crop residue management revealed that the state government had set up 609 CHCs in Fatehabad district in five years. The district has 7,013 machines, including balers, Happy and Super Seeders and other machinery for residue management.

However, a district official said they had 305 balers, of which 135 were functional in the district. “Machinery seems to have been rendered useless in absence of purchasers for the bales of paddy straw this time in the district.