Responding to the dangerous level of pollution in Delhi-NCR, the central govt which has rather woken up late, claimed that there has been a reduction of 12.01% in incidents of Stubble burning compared to the same period in 2018.
The govt release says Union Ministry for Agriculture & Farmers Welfare has adopted several measures to tackle Stubble burning incidents. As per ICAR’s Creams Laboratory latest bulletin, dated 4th November 2019, there has been a reduction of 12.01% in incidents of Stubble burning.
The States of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab recorded a reduction of 48.2% , 11.7% and 8.7% respectively this year till date. Total 31,402 burning events were detected in the three states between 1st October 2019 and 3rd November 2019 which are distributed as 25366, 4414 and 1622 in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh respectively.
Earlier, as per directions from Prime Minister’s Office in 2017 with regard to the pollution caused in Delhi NCR due to stubble burning in States surrounding, a high level committee under Secretary (DARE) has been set up. The committee has recommended for adopting machanized crop residue management. Aa per the recommendations Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare has formulated a Scheme which was included in the 2018-19 Budget.
The release lists several measures adopted by the Central govt such as ‘Promotion of Agricultural Mechanization for In-Situ Management of Crop Residue in the State of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh & NCT of Delhi’ was launched with a total outgo of Rs.1151.80 Crores for the period from 2018-19 to 2019-20 by the Government.
With this financial assistance, 29,488 machines have been acquired. From these 10379 machines were directly given to farmers and 19109 machines were given to CHCs.
