Need of Awareness on Use of Equipments for Crop Residue Management

To discuss various issues regarding crop residue management, a meeting was organized in New Delhi under the Chairmanship of the Union Minister of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Shri Radha Mohan Singh. The Minister of State for Agriculture, Shri S.S.Ahluwalia was also present in the meeting. In meeting the Secretary, Department of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmers Welfare, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Chairman, Central Pollution Control Board, Deputy Director General, ICAR and representatives of the State Agriculture Departments of Punjab, Haryana and UP are also present.

In the meeting various issues related to crop residue management and stubble burning are discussed and also Shri Radha Mohan Singh directed the officials of the Ministry and State Governments to take steps to promote use of equipments for crop residue management in a big way.

The Minister also emphasised that the State Governments should create massive awareness on crop stubble management and create large number of customs hiring centres in which machines for crop residue management are included.

A National Policy for Management of Crop Residue was made and sent to all the State Governments in November, 2014. From time to time, advisories were also issued to state governments. In this direction, state Governments took several steps.

A workshop on crop stubble burning issues and management was held in Chandigarh in which the central and state government officials discussed the issues and made several recommendations on the issue in January 2015.

To monitor the progress of this important crop residue management issue, in Haryana and UP the Chief Secretaries and Principal Secretaries of Agriculture took several meetings. In Haryana, UP and Punjab, under various state government schemes like SMAM, RKVY, NFSM, CDP, Agricultural Machineries like Happy seeder, Rotavator, Zero till seed drill, Baler, Paddy Straw Chopper and Reaper Binder were distributed to farmers as a result of which there is substantial reduction in stubble burning.

Source: http://pib.nic.in/