Bad air: Punjab, Haryana told to be on guard | India News – Times of India

NEW DELHI: With the worst of the air quality days linked to stubble burning yet to come in Delhi-NCR, the Centre on Saturday advised Punjab and Haryana to strategically plan and handle the situation by deploying all necessary resources in the hotspot districts where burning episodes may likely occur in coming days.
The issue was discussed during an inter-ministerial meeting at Krishi Bhawan where officials apprehended the burning episodes may increase in the next fortnight coinciding with the pace of harvest operations in both Punjab and Haryana even as both the states have, so far, reported a lower number of such incidents compared to last year. The slow pace of harvest is linked to depressed procurement operations in Punjab where millers have been facing storage and paddy quality issues.
Since firecrackers are also responsible for deteriorating air quality around Diwali every year, the participants also discussed how to deal with it by strictly adhering to the Supreme Court’s order through proactive measures and creating public awareness.
Union agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who attended the meeting virtually, said though the episodes of stubble burning had reduced by 35% in Punjab and 21% in Haryana compared to the corresponding period in 2023, there was a need to further decrease the number using multiple interventions for both in-situ and ex-situ management of paddy straw.
He said it was the efforts of all stakeholders that brought down the stubble burning episodes by 51% compared to 2017, and appealed to states to promote bio-decomposer in mission mode.
A detailed presentation on how the issue of stubble burning is being handled was made by agriculture secretary Devesh Chaturvedi during the meeting. The participants were informed that the Centre has, so far, this year released Rs 150 crore for paddy straw management to Punjab, Rs 75 crore to Haryana, Rs 50 crore to UP and over Rs 8 crore to ‘Krishi Vigyan Kendras’ out of total Rs 600 crore earmarked for this purpose during 2024-25.
Besides Chouhan, Union environment minister Bhupender Yadav, Delhi’s environment minister Gopal Rai, and agriculture ministers of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh also joined the meeting virtually. Haryana officials shared details of various incentives which are being provided to farmers in the state to deal with the problem through ex-situ/in-situ management of biomass and crop diversification.
Punjab and Haryana have this year estimated generation of 19.5 million tonne and 8 million tonne of paddy straw respectively. Punjab is learnt to have promised to manage 11.5 million tonne of its paddy straw through in-situ crop residue management using crop residue management (CRM) machines and the rest via ex-situ methods.
Similarly, Haryana has plans to manage 3.3 million tonne through in-situ and the remainder through ex-situ measures such as strengthening the supply chain of stubble as resources to small industries in briquetting and pelletizing operations to enhance the economic use of paddy straw.
States have over the years supported farmers and custom hiring centres for procuring three lakh subsidised CRM machines under the crop residue management scheme of the agriculture ministry.