Admn wooing farmers to check stubble burning

The harvesting of the paddy will start in a month and managing stubble burning is one of the most arduous tasks for the Agriculture Department and the government. The cases of stubble burning are rising every year. Earlier, it was just paddy stubble burning but, in the last two-three years, there has been a significant rise in cases of wheat stubble burning too.

Last year, over 1,100 paddy stubble burning cases were reported from Jalandhar.

To curb the rising cases, DC Himanshu Aggarwal has visited three villages — Chak Kalan, Kang Sabu and Sidhwan — in Nakodar, urging farmers to actively participate in environmental protection. Interacting with farmers where maximum number of stubble burning cases were registered last year, Aggarwal said the government was committed to assisting farmers in adopting sustainable practices.

Similarly, in Kapurthala too, the DC along with the Chief Agriculture Officer went to the hotspot villages, including Tibba, Shahpur Dogra, Talwandi Chaudharia, etc to sensitise the farmers.

The camps are being organised for farmers and they have been asked to buy stubble management machines on subsidy. Not many farmers had come forward and shown interest in these which is why the date to apply for the machines has been extended till September 19 so that maximum farmers could avail the benefit.

To tackle the problem, the Agriculture Department had also taken the initiative of creating videos of farmers, who have not burnt stubble for the past several years and sharing these with others through social media platforms.

Along with the videos, contact numbers of farmers were also shared so that those who want to adopt the method to manage the paddy stubble could discuss it in detail with the progressive farmers. The department was also putting videos on a YouTube channel, ‘Safal Kisan’, and circulating these among district farmers.