DW Bureau | Chandigarh: Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann on Monday batted for a sustained campaign to make the farmers aware about the paddy straw management to further reduce the incidents of paddy straw burning in the state.

Chairing a meeting for preparations regarding crop residue management, the Chief Minister said that the farmers must be made aware of the hazards of paddy straw burning through Communication campaign adding that they must be made aware about the provisions of subsidy on straw management equipment. He further said that farmers must also be informed about reduction in cost of managing straw through Custom Hiiring Centres. Bhagwant Singh Mann also advocated establishment of Custom Hiring centre (CHC) at Panchayats and other common places.

The Chief Minister also directed the Deputy Commissioners to launch a vigorous campaign to make the farmers aware of the hazards of paddy straw burning. He said that it will help in transforming the war against paddy straw burning into  mass movement. Bhagwant Singh Mann said that under the crop residue management scheme 2024-25, the Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Punjab had already called for applications from interested farmers in availing subsidy under the scheme through agrimachinerypb.com portal.

The Chief Minister said that a total of 63,904 number of application for machinery were received upto June 20, 2024. He said that as per the demand of the districts, the portal was opened again from 13.09.2024 to 19.09.2024 and 1.07 lakh cumulative applications have been received till September 19. Bhagwant Singh Mann said that the state government has set of target of distributing 14000 machines to individual farmers and establishment of 1100 Custom Hiring Centers in the districts.

The Chief Minister also said that the state government has also launched Unnat Kisan” mobile application which is a one-stop platform for farmers to easily avail Crop Residue Management (CRM) machines ahead of paddy harvesting season-2024. He said that the App makes the CRM machines more accessible to the small and marginal farmers adding that over 1.30 lakh CRM machines have been mapped on the App for the farmers.

Bhagwant Singh Mann said that the mobile application enables farmers to easily book a machine from the available Custom Hiring Centres (CHCs) in their vicinity adding that for more facilitation, Village Level Nodal officer/Cluster Head will pre-assign the machines for the farmers by taking their choice so that Farmer can easily book machine.

The Chief Minister said that it is heartening to note that with the usage of the machines and the massive awareness campaign there has been a significant decrease in fire incidents. He said that there has been a reduction of 30 % in the no of fire incidents (71,159)  in 2022-23 as compared to 76,929 in 2021-22 and a reduction of 26 % in the no of fire incidents (49,922) in 2023-24 as compared to 71,159 in 2022-23.

Likewise, Bhagwant Singh Mann said that a total reduction of 52 % in fire incidents has been observed in 2023-24 as compared to 2020-21.