Amid the ongoing political blame game over stubble burning by farmers leading to a spike in pollution levels across the region, farmers’ outfits have now hit out at the Manohar lal Khattar Government in Haryana for neglecting the helpless farmers and threatening them with FIR and penalty.
The farming community has also lashed out at the BJP led Central Government, AAP led Delhi Government and Congress led Punjab Government for defaming the farmers by holding them responsible for smog in the national capital and neighboring states.
As the toxic thick smog crept over the region this past week, the Chief Ministers of Delhi, Punjab and Haryana were seen making accusations against each other and also, blaming farmers for stubble burning, which aggravated the air pollution problem.
While Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has blamed the stubble burning by farmers in Punjab and Haryana for smog, Haryana CM had claimed that incidents of stubble burning has reduced in the state and subsidy has been provided to the farmers to buy agricultural equipments for crop residue management.
Since the onset of harvesting season, Haryana Government has taken action against more than 1500 farmers for stubble burning. While FIR has been registered against 244 farmers, a fine of Rs 18.65 lakh has been recovered from 695 farmers in the state.
Unhappy with Haryana Government’s action, the farmers’ organizations have accused it of ignoring the woes of farming community and allegedly that the government is making false claims of taking a series of measures to help the farmers besides giving them subsidy for crop residue management.
At the same time, the farmers’ organizations have also demanded the government to put in place a mechanism of buying agricultural equipments for a panchayat with its funds so that the poor farmers do not have to buy these expensive equipments for crop residue management.
Gurnam Singh Chaduni, chief of Haryana unit of Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) while talking to The Pioneer said that BJP led Central and Haryana Governments have failed to provide any help to the farmers and instead, holding them responsible for smog in Delhi.
Industrial pollution and vehicular pollution is also responsible for the deteriorating air quality. As far as issue of stubble burning is concerned, it could have been resolved easily but the Haryana Government failed to act in a timely manner, said he.
Poor farmers are helpless and forced to burn crop residue. They cannot buy the straw management implements due to their high cost, said he.
Various farmers’ outfits had requested the Haryana Government to buy these agricultural equipments for gram panchayats so that the farmers of that area can use it by paying rent. But such suggestions were ignored and nothing was done at the grass-root level to provide financial assistance to the farmers to manage crop residue, said he.
Chaduni also alleged that there was a delay in announcing the subsidy on these agricultural equipments in the state.
Criticizing the State Government for registering FIR against farmers and imposing fine on them, Shamsher Singh Dahiya, Haryana president of the BKU (Ambawata), said that like previous year, Haryana Government was unprepared to deal with the situation.
Most of the farmers could not get the facility of subsidy on agricultural implements and also, did not get these equipments on rent, he claimed.
The government did not make any arrangements to curb incidents of stubble burning but only threatened the farmers by registering FIR against them and imposing fine on them, added Dahiya.
He further said that we had requested the Chief Minister and the Centre also, to make prior arrangements for the farmers to manage crop residue.
Even after the ban on crop-residue burning, the illegal practice continued unabated in various parts of Haryana this year.
To curb the incidents of stubble burning, Haryana Government had announced that if a farmer is found guilty of burning crop residue, he would have to pay penalty of Rs 2,500 for two acres, Rs 5,000 for two to five acres and Rs 15,000 for more than five acres, per incident.
Rattan Mann, president of BKU (Mann faction) said that the State Government is trying to hide its failures by blaming farmers for stubble burning. It is the government which was unprepared and did nothing to ensure crop residue management, he said.
“The farmers have no alternative but to burn the stubble. It is not possible for the farmers to spend lakhs of rupees on the expensive equipments for crop residue management. The government should have provided such equipments at village level on rent to the farmers to stop the practice of stubble burning,” added Mann.
Following the severe levels of air pollution in Delhi and the national capital region (NCR) that left people gasping, Haryana Government had last week ordered that hot mix plants, stone crushers and brick-kilns (which have not been converted into zig-zag kilns) will remain closed till further orders.
The deputy commissioners in affected districts of the state were also empowered to take decision at their own level to declare holidays in schools, depending upon the situation of air pollution in their respective areas.
A similar situation was witnessed in November last year when smog had enveloped the entire region reducing visibility levels, leading to health risks and also, fatal accidents. However, the Haryana Government failed to learn any lesson that could have prevented the situation this year.