In a major setback to Punjab Government’s efforts to seek compensation for farmers to manage crop residue, the Central Government on Friday claimed that the state failed to utilise funds allocated to it to deal with the issue.
Centre maintained that the state was allocated Rs 49.08 crore and Rs 48.50 crore during 2016-17 and 2017-18, respectively, to deal with the issue, and did not utilise any of the amounts.
On the other hand, the Centre maintained that the BJP-led Haryana Government utilised Rs 39 crore out of Rs 45 crore allocated for the same in 2017-2018.
The funds were allocated by the Department of Agriculture Cooperation and Farmers’ Welfare for crop residue management under Sub-Mission on Agriculture Mechanization.
Punjab has seen over 40,000 field fires till date during paddy harvesting and still the fires are going on to clear the stubble.
There was total around 29.25 lakh hectares under ‘rice cultivation’ in Punjab this year including over 4.50 lakh hectares under ‘Basmati rice’ (fine quality rice) and remaining under ‘parmal rice’ (paddy).
Basmati rice is harvested mostly manually and its stubble is used as ‘fodder’ for cattle. The main problem is ‘paddy stubble’ which is not much popular as fodder and around 75 percent of total 197 lakh tonnes paddy stubble is burnt in the fields only.
Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh has several times raised the issue of seeking compensation for the farmers to manage the crop residue. He has twice written to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and also to the Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to raise the issue.