Punjab: Sale target for crop residue management machines not met

Deepkamal Kaur

Jalandhar, October 25

Even as the state government had announced an action plan of Rs 350 crore to check stubble burning by providing 20,000 Crop Residue Management (CRM) machines on subsidy, most farmers in Jalandhar said their village societies had not made any significant purchases this year.

They said they were getting these machines only on rent from big landlords for which they were asked to shell out Rs 1,500-Rs 2,000 per acre.

Harpreet Singh, a farmer of Kotli Gajran village near Shahkot, said there was approximately 1,000 acres of land under paddy in their village, but only five to six farmers owned mulcher machines. “A farmer who asks for the machine today will get it after 15 days. So, some small farmers cultivating 1-2 acres of land do not wait and tend to set their fields on fire. This has started happening again this time,” he said.

Surinder Singh, leader of the Doaba Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee, said, “Since we flagged the issue of lesser machines available than required, some farmers from Patiala and Khanna, where more harvesting has been done, have sent their machines to Bhogpur and Kartarpur areas, where harvesting has just reached about 40 per cent.”

As per data available from the Punjab Agriculture Department, as many as 70,840 applications were received this year for the purchase of CRM machines, but only 26,927 were sanctioned till October 12. Of these, 11,097 could be purchased. The department has set a target that 9.63 lakh tonnes of paddy straw should be collected for utilisation in biomass plants and brick kilns.

Vishesh Sarangal, DC, said, “We have identified some hotspots and our teams are focusing on spreading awareness in those areas”.