‘Delhi farmers to get free chemical to tackle stubble’: CM Kejriwal

In a bid to control farm fires, a key reason behind the city’s deteriorating air quality every winter, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday said the Delhi government will start the process of preparing a fermented liquid solution to be sprayed on 800 hectares of land in the city where stubble burning is practised by farmers.

The solution, he said, will help convert the stubble into manure and is a cheap and safe alternative to burning.

Kejriwal said all arrangements for spraying the solution on farm fields will be made by the Delhi government and will be provided free of cost to the farmers.

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The process will be executed under the guidance of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), Pusa, and the cost of its implementation will be nearly ₹20 lakh.

Addressing the media on Tuesday, Kejriwal said, “From October, the entire north India is troubled with smoke that covers the belt due to crop stubble burning every year. While Delhi has to suffer from the smoke, the farmers who are forced to burn the stubble and their villages are the ones who have to suffer the most.”

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The CM said this year, the Pusa research institute has formulated capsules, four of which can be mixed with a liquid solution prepared from jaggery and gram flour, and can be sprayed to cover one hectare of land. This mixture when sprayed softens the hard straw and turns it into manure.

Kejriwal said the mixture will be prepared by the Delhi government under the guidance of the Pusa institute. The process of formulating the mixture will begin from October 5 and completed by October 12 or 13.

The Delhi government will set up the entire spraying system on the fields with tractors, free of cost for the farmers, he said.

In 15-20 days, the sprayed stubble will soften and will be converted into manure for the fields.

There are around 800 hectares of land in Delhi where non-basmati rice is grown, following which the stubble is collected and set on fire.