The Supreme Court approved on Monday the Centre’s proposal to end stubble burning in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh and asked it to follow the deadlines fixed by its high-level task force.
Stubble burning contributes to Delhi’s rising air pollution during the winter season. An application filed by the court-appointed Environment Protection (Pollution and Control) Authority (EPCA) and a petition by advocate RK Kapoor had nudged the government to constitute a high-level task force to formulate a plan to tackle stubble burning.
Under the plan, farmers will be offered 50% subsidy to purchase machines for management of paddy residue without burning it. A subsidy of 75% will be offered to co-operative societies, custom hiring centres, farmers’ interest groups or gram panchayats for buying such machines. Governments of Haryana, Punjab and UP will work out the hiring charges with these organisations to rent out the machines to farmers.
The committee’s report has fixed September 2018 as the deadline to make the machines available. A procedure has been laid out in the report for the government to order them with companies.