WHY IS GOVT INSISTING ON PADDY SOWING NOT BEFORE JUNE 20?

The main objective is to save subsoil water, says the government, which this year, too, has set a target of 28.5 lakh hectares under paddy. Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) chairman Kahan Singh Pannu says that the postponement (from June 15 last year to June 20 this time) will save 24 lakh million litres of water, which farmers would have otherwise pumped out through 14 lakh tubewells in five days.