With over 1,700 cases, Tarn Taran tops the list
AMRITSAR: Even though the administration has fined many farmers for burning wheat straw in fields, the farmers continue to indulge in the practice on mass level thereby making all the measures futile.
Burning of crop residue has become a common practice in the rural areas.
The farmers here seem to ignore the awareness campaigns of district/sub-division level monitoring committees.
The committee comprises of officials from Punjab agriculture department, revenue department, Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) and a sub-divisional magistrate.
As per a recent survey of Punjab Remote Sensing Centre Ludhiana, Tarn Taran has outdone all the districts of Punjab and Amritsar is at the third spot in the list, in stubble burning.
As per this report, a total 1,723 cases of residue burning have been detected in Tarn Taran and 1,124 in Amritsar.
The practice is being executed on such a large scale that the residents are now finding ashes scattered on roof tops and courtyards of their houses even in urban areas.
Also people are facing health hazards due to residue burning.“We are trying our best to convince the farmers to shun the practice and have even fined many of them using satellite imaginary, but still many indulge in the practice. We will further tighten the noose around the violators,” said agriculture development officer Gurdeep Singh.
He said, “Things are going better as compared to before as few farmers have started adopting other methods of decomposing wheat straw.”
Gajjan Singh, a farmer from Khadoor Sahib, said, “It needs a strong will power to shun this practice as we have to put in extra efforts to incorporate the crop residue in soil.”