The Haryana government is focussing on mass awareness campaigns against ill effects of the stubble burning apart from offering incentives to farmers to deal with the paddy crop residue. Till now, only 61 farmers have been challaned for stubble burning in Haryana against 3,626 in 2021. This year the authorities have imposed a penalty of Rs 1.65 lakh on the farmers in these 61 cases while this amount was Rs 80.12 lakh last year. Director general of Haryana agriculture and farmers' welfare department Hardeep Singh said, “Now we focus more on awareness. Our officials are contacting those persons, who had indulged in stubble burning in 2021, to offer them help in management of crop residue instead of imposing penalties on them.” Singh said, “We have developed a web portal where farmers can register themselves to offer the crop residue. On the same portal, industrialists can offer that they can consume a particular quantity of crop residue in their industries. We have created an atmosphere which is moving towards solution instead of penalties.” CM Manohar Lal Khattar said Tuesday that under “in-situ management”, 23 lakh MT crop residue will be utilised through various machines and decomposers, and 13 MT crop residue will be utilised under “ex-situ management”. The CM said that so far only 83 incidents of stubble burning have taken place in the state. A senior officer had said that when the farm agitation was going on last year, a lot of farmers were not listening to them and continued burning paddy stubble which led to an increase of farm fires last year. From 4,202 in 2020, the cases rose to 6,987 in 2021. Officials say now the focus is mainly on six districts – Fatehabad, Kaithal, Karnal, Kurukshetra, Jind and Sirsa – as they contribute around 80 per cent to the total incidents of crop residue burning. This year, only three FIRs, that too in one district (Fatehabad), have been lodged against the farmers in connection with the incidents of stubble burning. “Normally, FIRs against the farmers are lodged at the initiative of local officials as the political leadership doesn’t endorse such punitive actions,” a senior officer said. The officer said, “The recent rain has caused a delay in harvesting the paddy. Because of the rain, the impact of stubble burning in terms of pollution is not clearly visible as of now. The one- month period starting from October 15 to November 15 would be crucial to see how effective is the strategy being adopted against stubble burning.” The official figures show that there is a continuous decrease in the number of stubble burning cases during the past six years except in 2021. As many as 15,686 cases of stubble burning were reported in 2016 and this number had gone down to 4,202 in 2020. The officials hope to see a reduction by at least 50 per cent in the number of stubble burning incidents this year compared to 6,987 incidents of 2021. At a meeting on Monday, Chief Secretary Sanjeev Kaushal said: “ The robust initiative taken by the Haryana government is showing positive results and supporting in reducing the effects of stubble burning. In future too, we are expecting outstanding results. DCs at district level and SDMs at sub-divisional level have been designated as nodal officers for prevention of crop residue burning. Officials in red zone villages and yellow zone villages have been deputed. Flying squads are constituted for taking enforcement measures against the defaulters and a dedicated control room at district level has been established.”
