14 Moga cluster officers for stubble burning issued show-cause notice

Stubble burning is such a serious issue that cluster officers have also been given hep of nodal officers for field work, yet Moga administration failed to receive daily reports from them, ADC (G) has claimed

Moga With the district reporting 62 cases of paddy stubble burning cases to date, additional deputy commissioner (general), Harcharan Singh, has served show-cause notices to 14 senior officers, appointed as cluster officers to control the menace. These officers failed to act against stubble burning even as they have been given nodal officers under them to help curb the menace.

The cluster officers in Punjab’s Moga failed to submit action taken reports on stubble burning, a major concern for the state at this time of the year; showcause notices seek reply within three days. (HT File)

Those issues the notices include tehsildars, block development and panchayat officers (BDPOs), sub-divisional officers (SDOs), sub-divisional engineers (SDEs), block agriculture officers and junior engineers (JEs).

These officers failed to submit daily action taken reports on farm fire incidents to the Moga administration. Now, they have directed to file reply to the notices within three days or face departmental action.

The Moga administration has appointed nodal officers for every village and over 20 cluster officers to check stubble burning incidents. They are obligated to share daily action taken reports through a mobile application called ‘ATR’ (action taken report), developed by Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) and the Punjab Remote Sensing Centre (PRSC), after physical verification of stubble burning incidents.

Their failure in sending reports caused inconvenience to the Moga administration in monitoring and data compilation of stubble burning incidents; the administration also faced difficulty in sharing information of stubble burning incidents with the state government, the notice to them reads.

Sources added that nodal officers were not going to villages for physical verification of stubble burning, due to farmers’ agitation. Other claim that technical glitches in the mobile application led to the non-submission of daily reports.

“We have served notices to the 14 officers not sharing reports, and they have separate verbal reasons. We have sought explanations and replies from them. Their replies will reveal the actual reason for failing to upload the action taken reports,” the ADC (G) added.

The 14 officers issued the show-cause notices are Iqbal Singh, SDO; Gurdeep Singh, JE, water supply and sanitation department; Navroop Singh, SDE of construction sub-division Moga; Manvir Kaur, naib tehsildar of Ajitwal; Sukhvir Kaur, BDPO Moga-1; Jarnail Singh, supervisor of Guardians of Governance (GoG), Manjot Singh Sodhi; BDPO Kot Ise Khan, Kirpal Singh; BDPO Nihal Singh Wala, Joginder Singh; SDO of Mandi Board, Baghapurana, Deepak Kumar; naib tehsildar of Nihal Singh Wala; Gurbhej Singh, assistant project officer (APO) of BDPO Kot Ise Khan, Partap Singh; tehsil in-charge of GoG, Sudhir Kumar; SDE Moga-1 and Gurpreet Singh, block agriculture officer of Nihal Singh Wala sub-division.