CHANDIGARH, October 31:
Mr. Randeep Singh Nabha , Agriculture Minister Punjab has made an appeal to all farmers , cooperatives and panchayats , who have received sanctions to procure machines to bring all machines for physical verification on 1.11.2021 , at office premises of all Block Agricultural Officers or designated alternate sites. The process to release subsidy will be immediately initiated once the machines are verified. He also assured that subsidy will be disbursed in the bank accounts of farmers or cooperatives as per the scheme guidelines.
The Minister also advised farmers belonging to Scheduled Castes , Panchayats and Cooperatives to submit applications for paddy residue management machines through portal of the department agrimachinerypb.com. In case of any difficulty, help will be extended by Department Officials to submit applications on the portal. Role of Panchayats and Cooperatives is very important to provide machines to small, marginal and SC farmers without rentals.
The farmers have been advised not to burn paddy straw and rather make use of machines made available to Cooperative Societies and Panchayats and other Custom Hiring Centres in the State. Farmers may use other options like Bio Decomposers , Direct Seeding of Wheat, he added.
Mr. Nabha said that Under the Crop Residue Management (CRM) scheme for providing agri-machinery to the farmers in the paddy harvesting season, the Punjab Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare Department has already given approval to 10297 applications till date, received from PACS, Panchayats, CHCs registered under Farmers Societies and individual farmers for purchasing of 31970 agri-machines/equipments to combat the menace of stubble burning. This includes 10023 machines for individual farmers; 15498 machines for CHCs; 5543 for Panchayats, 906 for PACS.
Under CRM scheme, the State government has focused to deliver state-of-the-art machines to farmers including Super SMS, Super Seeder, Happy Seeder, Paddy Straw Chopper/Shredder/Mulcher, Hydraulic Reversible Mould Board Plough and Zero Till Drill for in-situ management and Baler and Rake as ex-situ machines on subsidy for the ease of the farmers.
Mr. Nabha further said that 76,626 paddy straw management machines were given on subsidy to the farmers in the last three years. The Minister further said that Patiala, Sangrur, Barnala, Bathinda, Ferozepur, Sri Muktsar Sahib, Tarn Taran, Moga , Ludhiana and Mansa were also identified as hotspot districts, where most of paddy stubble burning cases were reported in the past.
The Agriculture Minister said that a special campaign is run by the Department of Agriculture in villages through training camps , different type of competitions among school children for awareness against stubble burning; training is being provided or better use of machines; thought provoking messages have been put on walls at prominent places. Special Display Vans are being used to convey the message to the farthest corner of each district.
Mr. Nabha stated that the state government has also deployed a special task force for enforcement and regulatory measures in these districts so as to ensure the prevention of stubble burning incidents in the ensuing paddy harvesting season. Farmers are advised to take help of the Nodal Officers for getting the machines for use from CHCs and use I-khet machine App developed with the Punjab Remote Sensing Centre.
All machines procured by CHCs and Individual Farmers are mapped with I-khet machine and anyone can come to know about machines for paddy residue management available within a radius of 5 to 25 kms , the minister added.
