On September 24, members of the Kirti Kisan Union (KKU) threatened that if the Punjab government did not stop taking action against the farmers for burning paddy residue in the fields, they would dump the stubble outside the office of Cabinet Minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal in Ajnala on October 5. Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal is the minister of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, apart from Rural Development & Panchayats, and NRI affairs.
The warning was issued during a meeting of the farmers and members of KKU in Ajnala. The farmers raised the issue of the government’s action against farmers for burning stubble and not creating alternate use for crop residue. The farmers accused the government of getting on backtrack from the promise of financial assistance to the farmers so that they could make alternate arrangements to manage the crop residue.
The farmers claimed it would cost them Rs 3,000 per acre if they mixed the residue in the soil. They called the whole process time-consuming, costly and cumbersome. Satnam Singh, KKU President, said, “More than 95 per cent of the farmers do not have the machines which are required for alternate management of crop residue.”
Farmer leader Jatinder Singh Chinna said, “Even if the farmers make bales of stubble, it does not have any market value. The farmers will need space to store these bales.” He further added that as an alternative, the crop residue can be used in the cardboard and paper industry. However, “Instead of taking responsibility for the stubble issue, the government is shifting the onus to the farmers,” he said.
Blaming industries for the pollution, Chinna claimed that the Agriculture sector causes only 8 per cent of the pollution. He said, “While the government is acting tough against farmers, it has never acted against pollution-causing industries.”
Earlier, Agriculture minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal had appealed to the farmers not to burn farm residue and had assured that five super seeder machines will be given to each block so that small farmers can use them. The Punjab government is also providing 32000 machines to the farmers on subsidy. Reportedly, the Punjab govt has 90,422 stubble management machines, including about 35,000 happy seeder and super seeder machines. Nearly 32,000 machines will be distributed by providing around Rs.450 Crore subsidy this year.
Minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal has also started the Information Education Communication (IEC) campaign, through which they will tell people about the detrimental effects of stubble burning on the environment, soil, human health etc.
Recently, the Central Government refused to provide any financial assistance to Punjab to pay incentives to the farmers so that they do not burn stubble. In a video message, CM Bhagwant Mann had announced that over one lakh machines to manage the stubble would be made available for the farmers, but no further announcements were made on the matter.
In the next couple of months, farmers from Punjab will start burning stubble on a large scale, which is one of the major reasons for pollution in Delhi during that period. While the central government and state governments have been working on the issue, Punjab, in particular, has shown an increase in stubble-burning cases in the past couple of years. Notably, while stubble burning has been proven as one of the major causes of air pollution during the period, governments and activists continue to blame Diwali firecrackers, even though the firecrackers cause pollution only for a few hours in a day. Like in last few years, this year also the Delhi government has already announced a complete ban on firecrackers during Diwali.