Over 25,400 farmers raise claims for managing paddy residue in Kurukshetra
Over 25,400 farmers in the district have raised claims under the Crop Residue Management scheme of the government for not burning paddy residue in over 2.23 lakh acres in the district during the recently concluded paddy harvesting season.
As per the data procured from the Agriculture Department, as many as 25,453 farmers have sought incentives for not burning paddy stubble in over 2.23 lakh acres in Kurukshetra up to November 30.
As per the data available, while 9,284 farmers have adopted the in-situ management in 60,697-acres, 16,383 farmers adopted ex-situ in 1,62,687-acres. The government offers an incentive of Rs 1,000 per acre to the farmers for the in-situ and ex-situ management of paddy stubble.
Nearly 3.20 lakh acres were under paddy cultivation in the district this year from which about 6 lakh tonne paddy straw were generated. Mixing the residue back into the soil would decrease the requirement of fertiliser and improve the fertility of the soil.
An official said a number of farmers were left out from raising claims as they were busy with wheat sowing and they could raise their claims as the last date of raising claims were extended to December 8. Earlier, November 30 was the last date for raising claims.
An increase in the number of claims has been observed this year. Last year, 23,397 farmers had raised claims for not burning the residue in 1.96 lakh acres. Of total, the claims of 20,139 farmers were found genuine on over 1.73 lakh acres and they were given an incentive of Rs 17.39 crore for managing the residue.
Agriculture Department Subdivisional Officer (SDO) Jitender Mehta said the claims would be verified by committees comprising officials from the Agriculture Department, gram sachiv and patvari and the farmers needed to produce the proof of not burning the straw. The claims would be approved by the District-Level Executive Committee (DLEC) after verification and then the farmers ould get the incentives.
Meanwhile, Deputy Director Agriculture (DDA) Dr Karam Chand said, “Due to the broad district action plan prepared wherein farmers were educated and a drop in farm fires and increase in the area under residue management has been achieved. Adequate machines were available in the field to help the farmers in managing the residue. While over 25,400 farmers have raised their claims for not burning the residue, a number of tenant farmers were not able to raise their claims, despite managing the residue.”
“There has been a drop of in the farm fires this year. The department has been making sincere efforts to educate the farmers not to burn the stubble and the farmers have been showing interest after knowing the ill-effects of burning and benefits of residue management. We are hopeful that more farmers will adopt the crop residue management in the coming years”, he added.
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Taking action, the department has imposed an environment compensation charge (ECC) of Rs 1.80 lakh on 72 farmers who burnt the paddy stubble, besides these 95 red entries have been made in the Revenue Department’s record of offender farmers.
