Ruchika M Khanna
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, September 28
As the paddy harvesting season begins, there seems to be little hope of relief from farm fires. The political instability in the state and the upcoming Assembly elections, where farmers as a vote bank are crucial, will once again lead to high incidence of farm fires.
This is evident from the fact that even as paddy had been harvested selectively in just two districts of Amritsar and Tarn Taran, 96 cases of farm fire have been reported till yesterday. As the paddy harvesting begins in full swing within the next 10 days, these incidents are only going to increase further.
Last year, the number of stubble-burning cases had risen by over 44 per cent (from 52,991 in 2019 to 76,590 in 2020). This was mainly because of the anger among farmers over the three farm laws and the government shutting its eyes to the farm fires for fear of aggravating and alienating the farmers from the ruling Congress.
The issue of how the drive to check the farm fires “had proved to be an exercise in futility” had also come up for discussion at the Cabinet meeting last month, with at least two ministers — Brahm Mohindra and Manpreet Singh Badal — demanding to know how the money meant for in situ management was used.
Officials of the Punjab Pollution Control Board disagree and say that they have already challaned some miscreants and given them recovery notices for Rs 37,000, besides appointing 8,000 nodal officers to check stubble-burning. But, with the change in political guard and the farmers’ agitation continuing, it is unlikely that there would be any action on stopping farmers to burn the residual straw.
What further threatens to aggravate the crisis is the inability of the balers in Punjab to get a higher price from the units that use paddy straw as raw material. Balwinder Pardhan from the Balers Association said they would not be able to operate the balers at the rates offered to them.
“If the issue is not resolved, there will be a rise in pollution because of farm fires, as balers are not given proper rate for selling stubble. In 2012, bale was compensated at Rs 145 per quintal, when the rate of diesel was Rs 45, while in 2021 the rate of diesel is Rs 90 but they are compensated at Rs 125 per quintal by the biomass plants,” he said.
Experts say paddy is cultivated in 30 lakh hectares in Punjab and every year 20-22 million tonnes of straw is produced. Of this, balers process around 8.8 lakh metric tonne of stubble annually and sell it to the biomass plants, which produce 97.5 MW electricity annually. “If balers are not given apt rate, they will be forced not to procure and process stubble to bales from farmers, which would force the farmer to burn stubble,” he said.
Book machinery on ‘i-Khet’ app
- Agri Director Sukhdev Sidhu says the dept is spreading awareness on the ill-effects of stubble-burning and promoting in situ and ex situ management of residue
- “We have also developed an app, i-Khet, where those having stubble management machines register and farmers can then hire their machines,” he says
Harvesting begins, 2 Punjab districts Amritsar, Tarn Taran see 96 farm fires already
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