Burning of straw and stubble to be banned: NGOs

Perturbed over the problem of paddy straw and stubble burning in Punjab, resulting in the creation of smog in NCR region in winters, local based NGO Jwala Bai Nathu Ram (JBNR) trust in association with National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has chalked out a comprehensive plan to make Sri Muktsar Sahib the first Zero Burning district of Punjab.

It is worth mentioning that the burning of Paddy straw and stubble residual not only causes detrimental effect on the environment but it also burns lots of Micro and Macro nutrients from soil stop. Earlier, Supreme Court panel has also directed Punjab and Haryana to ensure complete ban on the environmentally hazardous practice of burning paddy straw. Punjab and Haryana were told to promote alternative uses of paddy straw and execute plans for power generation and bio-methanation in the next two years.

The trust under the project "Earn Do Not Burn" will train the farmers on (Straw) crop residue management. Speaking to Business Standard, JBNR Trust, trustee, Vikram A Ahuja said, "In this fiscal year, that is, 2014-15, we are going to cover the entire district by launching a concerted awareness campaign to motivate the peasantry against burning the paddy straw and other crop residuals with financial support from Nabard.

"We expect by launching the campaign around 150,000 tonnes of straw will be collected by using state-of-the-art machine meant for the purpose. The farmers would be motivated to make its bales with the help of baler machine and to sale them to bio mass power plant established in the district. In addition to this it will generate employment to over 1,200 rural youths and above all farmers can earn around Rs 20 crore by selling straw and stubble."