Punjab Government has banned harvesting of Rabi crop with combines from 7 pm to 10 am till May 29. “The harvesting of crop has been banned during night to ensure that the produce would be clean and dry as per the norms,” said the state Agriculture Director Dr Mangal Singh Sandhu on Monday. As crop absorbed moisture during the night due to dew, its harvesting adversely affected its purchase by procurement agencies, he said, adding that the ban orders will remain enforced till May 29, 2015. “To tackle the problem of stubble burning, the Agriculture Department has prepared plan for promoting ultra modern straw choppers in the state by providing maximum subsidy on it,” he said.
Sandhu said that the government has also announced an incentive for each district and village with a financial grant of Rs one crore and Rs one lakh respectively, which were free from stubble burning across the state. “The decision has been taken to curb practice of stubble burning, which is not only health hazardous but equally detrimental to soil fertility. Only resorting to punitive measures to end this curse would not yield anything and it would bring desired results only if the people were properly motivated to renounce this anti-environment and pollution causing phenomena,” he added.
Sandhu said that agriculture scientists, environment experts and farmers must join hands for curbing this unhealthy practice with multi-dimensional problems affecting human health besides creating ecological imbalance. He appealed the farmers not to join mad race for sowing one crop after another just to reap maximum profits rather they should be enlightened enough about the disastrous effects of stubble burning, which had far more harmful.