The Haryana government Friday said that it will give a cash award of Rs 1000 to those who give information about burning of crop residue in their area. The identity of the informant will be kept secret. Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, who chaired a meeting on crop residue management here, also asked officers of agriculture and farmers’ welfare department to visit 10 villages of the state where maximum crop residue burning has been reported to ascertain reasons behind this activity. He also directed the deputy commissioners to take stringent measures to prohibit burning of crop residue. In the meeting, the officers apprised Khattar that “34 per cent reduction has been registered in area burnt in the state upto October 22, this year as compared to the corresponding period the last year”. The government said that “as compared to last year when crop residue burning was reported on 57,000 hectares of land, this year it was reported only on 38,000 hectares”. Khattar also directed the officers concerned to encourage farmers not to burn crop residue and also apprise them about different options of crop management so as to conserve the environment. The CM also asked DCs to organise meetings of gram sabha so that detailed deliberations could be held with the farmers and actual reasons behind the same could be ascertained. “There is reduction of 6.5 per cent in incidents (of crop residue burning) as compared to last year as on date. A CRM fortnight was organized in the state wherein efforts were made to cover every village with the assistance of about 1.20 lakh students. Apart from this, a volunteer activity in the name of “Prali Paltan” was also started with the involvement of 20,000 NSS students. In addition, students were also administered pledge that they would not burn the agriculture residue and also motivate others to refrain from this activity,” a government spokesperson said. “Till now, the process of setting up of 1,248 custom hiring centres has been completed, which is 90 per cent of the total number of such centers to be established. The machines under CHCs and also provided to individual beneficiaries are available for the farmers for in-situ management of crop residue,” the spokesperson added. Khattar also directed officers to explore options for purchase of crop residue from the farmers. Discussions were held to explore the possibilities of utilization of crop residue. CM also sought a detailed report on the subject, at the earliest.
