Punjab appoints 8,000 nodal officers to check farm fires
According to agriculture minister Gurmeet Singh Khudian, 79 SDMs, 108 tehsildars, 108 DSPs, 1,140 cluster officers and additional staff have been mobilised to combat stubble burning during the harvesting season.
To prevent stubble burning in the state, the Punjab government has appointed as many as 8,045 nodal officers to keep vigil around the areas, which are considered hotspots and have indulged in the practice of paddy stubble burning.
The Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) has identified 663 villages in the state as stubble-burning hotspots. Moreover, eight districts, including Sangrur, Ferozepur, Bathinda, Moga, Barnala, Mansa, Tarn Taran and Faridkot, that recorded 23,410 (64%) of the total of 36,663 cases of stubble burning last year have also been labelled as stubble fire hotspots.
According to agriculture minister Gurmeet Singh Khudian, 79 SDMs, 108 tehsildars, 108 DSPs, 1,140 cluster officers and additional staff have been mobilised to combat stubble burning during the harvesting season.
“The officers have been tasked with closely monitoring post-harvesting activities and will engage in various information, education and communication (IEC) activities, such as conducting meetings with farmers and facilitating and encouraging the use of CRM machines,” he added.
Additionally, the commission for air quality management (CAQM) along with the central pollution control board (CPCB) on Tuesday also announced the deployment of flying squads in 16 districts of Punjab and 10 districts of neighbouring Haryana to check crop residue burning.
The paddy cultivation belt, which includes the two states of Punjab-Haryana along with western Uttar Pradesh and parts of Rajasthan, reports stubble fires after the harvest every year and this season the incidents have started picking up early. As many as 155 cases of paddy stubble fires have been reported in Punjab, which largely includes borders districts Amritsar and Tarn Taran.
The Punjab government on Tuesday opened at least 1,800 mandis in the state to receive freshly harvested paddy produce for procurement by the four state agencies.
According to CAQM, the flying squads of CPCB, assisting CAQM, have been deployed to the identified hotspot districts in the two states from October 1 to November 30, when the incidents of farm fires are generally highest.
The 16 districts in Punjab where flying squads have been deployed are Amritsar, Tarn Taran, Barnala, Bathinda, Faridkot, Fatehgarh Sahib, Fazilka, Ferozepur, Jalandhar, Kapurthala, Ludhiana, Mansa, Moga, Muktsar, Patiala and Sangrur. While ten districts of Haryana include Ambala, Fatehabad, Hisar, Jind, Kaithal, Karnal, Kurukshetra, Sirsa, Sonepat and Yamunanagar.
CAQM has also set up a paddy stubble management cell at Mohali during the harvesting season to coordinate with the Punjab agriculture department and the flying squads will assess the ground-level situation in coordination with authorities and report to the commission and CPCB daily.
8,635 machines given to farmers
The farmers have acquired a total of 8,635 CRM machines so far and according to Punjab agriculture minister Khudian 16,205 sanction letters for the procurement of subsidised CRM machinery have been issued to the farmers.