Four nambardars suspended, 23 other officials face action

THE ACTION WAS TAKEN AFTER FARM FIRES WERE DETECTED IN FATEHABAD THAT HAS LOGGED MAXIMUM CASES IN THE STATE

ROHTAK: Cracking down on officials for failure to check stubble burning, the Fatehabad administration on Monday suspended four nambardars and issued a chargesheet against a gram sachiv and a patwari, besides issuing notices to 20 others after farm fires were detected in the district that has clocked the highest number of cases in Haryana.

Talking over phone, Fatehabad deputy director (agriculture) Rajesh Sihag said the administration has suspended four nambardars and issued a chargesheet against the gram sachiv and patwari of Bhuna village in the district after 21 active locations of farm fires were reported by the satellite in the village.

The authorities also issued a notice to terminate the services of Bhuna agriculture supervisor (contractual) for not adhering to the directions issued by the administration to check farm fires.

Besides this, notices have been served to 20 people, including agricultural officials, gram sachivs, patwaris and nambardars after more than 5 active fire locations were reported each in Fatehabad, Kulan village, Hijrawan Khurd and Sardarewala village in the district, he said.

“We have adopted a zero-tolerance policy against stubble burning and have been organising campaigns to sensitise farmers to not burn stubble,” Sihag added.

He said that the administration has taken action against 45 agricultural officials, including agriculture development officer, assistant technology manager, block technology manager, supervisor, 47 patwaris, 44 gram sachivs and 134 nambardars by issuing notices against them, suspending a few of them and issuing chargesheet against a few others.

“We have issued 276 challans against the farmers flouting the norms and burning fires and issued a penalty of ₹ 697,500. The agriculture department has distributed 35,000 decomposers to farmers. As many as 23,000 farmers have submitted their details to get an incentive of ₹ 1,000 for not burning the stubble. A total of 677 active fire locations have been reported in the district,” Sihag said.

With 677 farm fire incidents, Fatehabad is leading among the districts with maximum number of stubble burning cases in the state.

As many as 17 incidents of stubble burning were reported across the state on Monday. Eight incidents were reported in Rohtak, 3 in Jind, 2 in Karnal and one each in Hisar, Palwal, Sonepat and Yamunanagar. The number was 132 on Sunday.