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Stubble burning on decline, thanks to awareness rise among farmers: Panel

The report attributes the decline to the switchover by farmers to environmentally sustainable crop residue management techniques

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75% of 20M tonnes of paddy straw generated in Punjab is burnt annually
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Even as stubble burning in neighbouring states remains a problem for Delhi's air, a High-Level Inter-Ministerial Committee constituted by the Centre early this year is confident that stubble burning is on the decline as more and more farmers of NCR are switching over from burning of paddy stubble to in situ management.

With Punjab and Haryana constituting highest to the stubble burning index over the years, the report said compared to 2016, the months of October and November in 2017 saw a marked decline in incidents of crop burning. Punjab showed the steepest decline from 86,367 cases in 2016 to 56,542 in 2017. In Haryana, these incidents reduced from 13,132 to 10,770. Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan showed a marginal decrease.

The report attributes the decline to the switchover by farmers to environmentally sustainable crop residue management techniques. Punjab has a total area of 31 lakh hectare under paddy cultivation. Annually, 20 million tonnes of paddy straw is generated in the state, of which 75 per cent is reportedly burnt. Similarly, for Haryana, which has paddy cultivation across 13.5 lakh hectare land, the paddy straw generated is 8.5 million tonnes of which 60 per cent are burnt each year.

A look at what these environmentally sustainable crop residue management methods need special focus. The High-Level Task Force noted that in the past one year, farmers in Punjab have been convinced that burning the stubble impacts the soil health. In contrast, when these farmers switched over to using paddy straw as mulch, it helped the rabi crop cultivation, chiefly of wheat and potato, sown in November soon after paddy cultivation gets over.

The cause of stubble burning behind pollution is known. But the report discussed how the practice impacted farmers as plant nutrients are lost, beneficial soil bacteria are killed, and the soil gets hardened. This gets avoided if the paddy residue remains on the field as mulch, the report said. Besides, there is a financial advantage of using paddy residue as mulch over its burning.

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