Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann had a live address with the people of Punjab on Wednesday and blamed the central government for rising stubble burning cases in Punjab. However, Punjab Government has brought an action plan on crop residue burning in May 2022 and get it implemented. As per the Senior Agriculture official, it is actually a failure of Action Plan that did not work the way it should have been so the Punjab Government is blaming the Central Government for this Air quality deteriorating mess.
Stubble burning cases keep rising with each passing day. The total count stubble burning of current season recorded today on Wednesday is 21480 and the maximum incidents of stubble burning cases are in CM Bhagwant Mann’s own constituency Sangrur. Single day recorded cases are 3634 in the state and the least case of stubble burning is in Gurdaspur i.e. just a 1 case.
Punjab Chief Minister had a live session on his social media handle and blamed Central Government for rise in stubble burning cases in Punjab. Bhagwant Mann said that Central Government hates Punjab Farmers and this is why the central government did not provide Rs 1500 subsidy on Paddy straw disposal to farmers and did not approve bio gas plant in Punjab yet. Contrary to this, a month back Union Petroleum Minister Hardeep Puri and CM Mann inaugurated Asia’s biggest Bio Gas plant in Sangrur worth of Rs 220 Crore. Moreover this same gas plant has been operating in Punjab for the last two years and was initially started by then Chief Minister of Punjab, Captain Amarinder Singh.
In the action plan of Punjab, it is mentioned that under the “Central Sector Scheme for Promotion of Agricultural Mechanization for In-situ Management of Crop Residue” the Punjab government has received Rs 1106.55 crore as subsidy to manage crop residue. Under these Schemes, 76,626 Crop Residue Machines have been provided to the farmers and 19,836 custom hiring centers have been established.
Environment Scientist Dr Shekhar Chandra of a private university based in Punjab, spoke to TDG and explained the May 2022 released action plan on Crop residue burning control action plan of Punjab, Dr Chandra said that it is completely non intentions of farmers which is failing the action plan of Punjab. Central Government have sent enough money as subsidy in Punjab but when farmers do not wish to control air pollution, no government can help them. Punjab Government shall accept their
failure in this.
