Government revises guidelines of crop residue management

New Delhi: In a preventive measure to put a check on stubble burning that happens after the paddy harvesting in winter season, the government on Saturday revised crop residue management guidelines to enable efficient ex-situ management of paddy straw generated in the states of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi.

As per the revised guidelines, techno-commercial pilot projects for paddy straw supply chain would be established under the bilateral agreement between the beneficiary/aggregator and industries utilizing the paddy straw.

The beneficiary or aggregator can be farmers, rural entrepreneurs, co-operative societies of farmers, Farmers Producer Organizations (FPOs) and panchayats, it said, adding that the move will supplement the efforts of paddy straw management through in-situ options. During the three-year tenure of the interventions, 1.5 million tonne of surplus paddy straw are expected to be collected which would otherwise have been burnt in fields.

About 333 biomass collection depots of capacity 4,500 tonne will be built in Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Air pollution caused by stubble burning will be considerably reduced and it would also generate employment opportunities of about 9 lakh man-days. As per the revised guidelines, the government will provide financial assistance on the capital cost of machinery and equipment. Also, the required working capital may be financed either by the industry and beneficiary jointly or utilizing the Agriculture Infrastructure Fund NABADR or financial institutions by beneficiary, it added.

The land for storage of the collected paddy straw would be arranged and prepared by the beneficiary as may be guided by the end use industry, it said, adding that project proposal based financial assistance will be extended for machines and equipment such as higher HP tractors, cutters, tedder, medium to large balers, rakers, loaders, grabbers and telehandlers which are essentially required for establishment of paddy straw supply chain.

The revised guidelines further stated that the state government would approve these projects through a project sanctioning committee, while the Centre and state government will jointly provide financial support of 65 per cent of the project cost and the industry as primary promoter of the project will contribute 25 per cent. The industry will act as the primary consumer of the feedstock collected and farmers or aggregators will be the direct beneficiary of the project, which will contribute the balance 10 per cent, it added.