New Delhi: Blaming Punjab for not utilising the fund allocated for crop residue management, Union Agriculture Ministry, which is headed by Cabinet Minister Radha Mohan Singh, has issued an advisory to the state governments to create awareness among the farmers about the harmful effect of stubble burning.
The advisory has been issued as a measure to combat agriculture stubble burning in the states of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. Surprisingly, Punjab, which is facing the heat of environmentalists for not preventing farmers from burning the stubble, has not utilised the fund allocated by the Centre for crop residue management.
According to ministry's report, Punjab was allocated Rs 49.08 crore and Rs 48.50 crore during 2016-17 and 2017-18 respectively to deal with the issue.
The other states such as Haryana has already used Rs 39 crore out of Rs 45 crore of its share for the year 2017-18 by the centre for crop residue management, while Rajasthan used Rs 3 crore out of allocated Rs 9 crore and Uttar Pradesh had used its all fund in the year 2016-17, which was Rs 24.77 crore and Rs 26.01 crore out of Rs 30 crore allocation for the year 2017-18.
"Burning of crop residue in these contributes to increasing environmental pollution levels. National Green Tribunal (NGT) has directed the Delhi government and these four northern states to take strict measures to deal with this serious biennial threat," the minister said in his official release.
The ministry, in its advisory, has written to facilitate farmers residue management machines and equipment such as zero till seed drill, happy seeder, straw baler, rotavator, paddy straw chopper/mulcher, gyro rake, straw reaper, shredder among other equipment through custom hiring centres or village level farm machinery banks.