The Haryana Government on Monday said there has been a 34.5 per cent decrease in cases of crop residue burning in the state as compared to last year in the whole season.

A spokesperson of the state government said that to sensitize farmers for not burning crop residue as well as for the management of crop residue in the State, Haryana Government has also provided special equipment at subsidised rate.

“This has resulted in 65.94 per cent reduction in stubble burning incidents from November 6 till date and as compared to last year, 34.50 per cent decrease in such incidents recorded in the whole season,” the spokesperson added.

The spokesperson said in 2018 from November 6 to November 24, 2018, there were 4,135 stubble burning incidents whereas only 1,408 incidents have occurred during the same period this year. Similarly, there were 10,050 incidents of stubble burning in the entire season, last year, whereas 6,581 incidents have been recorded throughout the season, this year.

He said that to completely stop stubble burning, the State Government has taken several important steps and in this series, the Government had announced to give a special incentive at the rate of Rs 100 per quintal to the small and marginal farmers of the State for not burning non-basmati paddy crop residue. The spokesman said till now an incentive amount of Rs 7,28,730 has been given to 3,438 farmers.

Through Custom Hiring Centers (CHC) for the Ex-Situ and In-Situ management of stubble burning 150 ballers were provided at subsidy. Apart from this, financial assistance of Rs 1,000 per acre was also given as operational cost to the CHC or Straw Baler unit owners for the Ex-Situ and In-Situ management of stubble burning.

Senior IAS officers have also been appointed for the guidance and monitoring of this scheme — PK Das for Kaithal district, Devender Singh for Fatehabad, TC Gupta for Sirsa, Mahavir Singh for Jind and Anurag Rastogi  for Hisar district.