Punjab Government on Thursday banned the harvesting of Rabi crop with combines during night from 7 pm to 10 am till May 31.
An official spokesperson of the Agriculture Department, Punjab said that the harvesting of crop has been banned during night so that the produce could be clean and dry as per the norms and specifications. He said that as crop absorbs moisture during night due to dew, its harvesting adversely affected its purchase by procurement agencies. Further movement of operation of combines to night is risky and can be a cause of fatal accidents.
To tackle the problem of stubble burning, the spokesman said that the Agriculture Department has provided ultra modern straw choppers to the farmers with maximum subsidy on it.
To get rid of menace of straw burning, the State Government had announced an incentive for each district and village with a financial grant of Rs1 crore and Rs1 lakh respectively, which were free from the stubble burning across the State. This decision has been taken to curb the practice, which was not only health hazardous but equally detrimental to the fertility of soil.
The spokesman added that resorting to punitive measures to end stubble burning would not yield anything and the results would come only if the people were properly motivated to renounce this anti-environment and pollution causing phenomena.