Need to ensure zero stubble burning in all villages: Union minister Rupala

Union Minister of State for Agriculture Parshottam Rupala on Monday said incidents of crop residue burning have come down and urged farmers to completely stop this practice.

Inaugurating the National Conference on Crop Residue Management for the farmers from the states of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, he complemented farmers for bringing down the stubble burning incidents.

Rupala requested further "support and ideas from farmers to ensure zero burning in all villages", an official statement said.

The minister said the success stories from these states should be shared with all farmers.

More than 1,000 farmers attended the conference.

To support the efforts of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi governments to address air pollution and to subsidise machinery required for in-situ management of crop residue through agriculture mechanisation, a central sector scheme for the period 2018-19 to 2019-20 has been implemented in these states with a total outgo of central funds Rs 1,151.80 crore.

During the year 2018-19, total funds of Rs 584.33 crore were released to the state governments of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and ICAR.

All three state governments have distributed 32,570 machines to farmers on individual ownership basis and established 7,960 custom hiring centres.

The straw burning events in 2018 have reduced by 15 per cent and 41 per cent as compared to that in 2017 and 2016, respectively, as per the report of a high power committee, chaired by Nagesh Singh.

During the conference, 20 farmers from Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh were honoured for their valuable contribution in management of crop residue by using identified agricultural machinery, as well motivating others of their village for in-situ management of crop residue to stop the straw burning.

Rupala also launched a multi-lingual mobile app 'CHC Farm Machinery' for farmers to avail the custom hiring services of CHCs located in the radius of 50 kilometres.

This app connects the farmers with custom hiring service centres in their area. This app can be downloaded on any android phone from Google Play Store.