To ensure clean, green and pollution-free environment, as many as 22 senior IAS officers have been deputed for efficacious coordination and monitoring the activities related to curbing the stubble burning in open fields in all districts of Punjab during Kharif-2019.
The State Chief Secretary Karan Avra Singh, acting on the directives of the Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh, has assigned the task to the 22 senior IAS officers, in addition to their present assignments.
The State Agriculture Secretary Kahan Singh Pannu informed that Additional Chief Secretary (ACS), Industry and Commerce, Vini Mahajan would monitor the activities against the burning of crop residue in Ludhiana district whereas ACS (Development) Viswajeet Khanna had been deputed for Sangrur district, ACS (Power) Ravneet Kaur for SBS Nagar and ACS (Sports and Youth Services) Sanjay Kumar for Mansa.
He said that the state Principal Secretary (Labour) VK Janjua had been deputed for Ferozepur, Principal Secretary (Social Justice, Empowerment and Minorities) Kirpa Shankar Saroj for Barnala, Principal Secretary (Finance) Anirudh Tiwari for SAS Nagar, Principal Secretary (Health and Family Welfare) Anurag Aggarwal for Amritsar, Principal Secretary (Jails) R Venkatratnam for Gurdaspur, Principal Secretary (Local Government) A Venu Prasad for Pathankot, Financial Commissioner (Rural Development and Panchayats) Seema Jain for Rupnagar, Principal Secretary (Water Resources) Sarvjit Singh for Tarn Taran, Principal Secretary (Social Security, Women and Children Development) Raji P Srivastava for Fatehgarh Sahib, Principal Secretary (Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs) KAP Sinha for Faridkot, Principal Secretary (Planning) Jaspal Singh for Hoshiarpur, Principal Secretary (Technical Education and Industrial Training) Anurag Verma for Sri Muktsar Sahib, Principal Secretary (Environment, Science Technology and Environment) Rakesh Kumar Verma for Bathinda, Principal Secretary (Transport) K Siva Prasad for Fazilka, Principal Secretary (Tourism and Cultural Affairs) Vikas Pratap for Kapurthala, Principal Secretary (General Administration) Alok Shekhar for Jalandhar, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister and Civil Aviation Tajveer Singh for Patiala, and Principal Secretary (Medical Education and Research) DK Tiwari for Moga.
Notably, the Centre has revealed a special scheme to tackle the serious issue of stubble burning in Punjab and Haryana in the coming weeks. For the same, the Union Environment, Forests and Climate Change Ministry has purchased as many as 22,000 machines with the assistance of around Rs 1,150 crores.
These machines will convert stubble into manure and save the burning of the crop residue.
Underlining that ‘recognition of the existing problem is the beginning of the solution’, the Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said that the stubble-burning in Punjab and Haryana continued to be an issue but the Government is hopeful that it would reduce.
“The Centre had allocated Rs 1,150 crore to the two states with which 22,000 machines had been bought,” said the Minister adding that the ministers of the five “affected” states were meeting next week to discuss the collective problem of air pollution.