Punjab government urges industry to invest in crop residue management

The Punjab government on Friday projected crop residue management as a field with huge investment potential, urging companies to invest in the processing of paddy

The Punjab government on Friday projected crop residue management as a field with huge investment potential, urging companies to invest in the processing of paddy stubble to make ethanol and biogas from it.

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Punjab, which is facing criticism for stubble burning, produces 20 million tonnes of paddy straw every year.

“Paddy stubble is one of the serious problems we have today. Almost 20 million tonnes of stubble is being produced every year, of which only 5 million tonnes is processed, leaving a surplus of 15 million tonnes with farmers who have no option but to burn it,” said Punjab additional chief secretary (development) Viswajeet Khanna during the second day of the Progressive Punjab Investors Summit here.

He said the stubble management had huge investment potential. “It (stubble) can be used for burning in boilers. We hope to bring in investment to produce ethanol and biogas from it,” said Khanna.

Two days ago, the Hinduja group had offered to help Punjab in addressing the problem by using straw in ethanol plants. The offer was made during a meeting between Punjab chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh and Hinduja group chairman Prakash Hinduja.

Khanna said with the support of the Centre, over 50,000 machines were distributed among paddy growers for the management of crop residue in the past two years. “Last year, we reduced the area under stubble burning by 10% but this year, unfortunately for various factors, there were an equal number of fire incidents as were last year. We could not reduce these this year,” Khanna said.