A welcome move to save the farming community.
Raghbir Singh Brar
Faridkot
If one is a law-abiding farmer, fearing red entries and registration of the cases for stubble burning, one may have to shell about Rs 1700 per acre, Rs 700 paid to the chopper operators and about Rs 900 to 1000 to paddy baler operators for making the bales of the paddy.
Apart from it, one may have to face harassment or delays of sowing next crop and preparing the tough fields.
There were strict messages to the farmers till the last week of October but conditioned with the whispers that if you want to burn the paddy stubble, burn it after the satellite monitoring the farm fire incidents leaves the land, ie,5 PM.
“The operators of the paddy balers demand Rs 1000 per acre for making stubble bales. For this, we have to first pay Rs 700 to the chopper operator so that the rakes could be made before bundling the stubble by machines. This way, one may have to pay Rs 1500 to 1700 per acre if you don’t want to burn the paddy stubble,” said a farmer from Faridkot village.
The Greed for money due to the outcome of paddy stubble burning.
The paddy balers which have been mostly provide on subsidy base, attracted the farmer when they themselves operated straw choppers and then made rakes before making the bales, but as the governments and courts toughened the stand not to let any farmer burn the stubble, the paddy balers operators started demanding Rs 800 to 1000 per acre for making bales this season.
“I had made repeated calls to an operator of the balers for collecting the stubble. He assured me for a week despite many calls but then did not turn up. Finally, I had to pay Rs 700 to a chopper operator and Rs 900 to the bailer operator. This way I had to shell out Rs 1700 per acre to avoid stubble burning despite a very low crop yield,’ claimed a farmer wishing not to be named.
The super seeders and smart seeders all go after stubble burning:
Though most of the farmers have so far used super seeders or smart seeders to sow wheat, yet they are used after burning the paddy stubble.
The farmers first burn the paddy stubble and then plough the fields for twice by discs or cultivators and then sow the wheat crop by using super seeders or smart seeders. But farm fire is there.
The alleged relaxation by the government and administration
Thanks to the favorable weather conditions and laxity of the state government and district administration, stubble burning is continuously on. Earlier, there was smog in the past years by this time, but now days are very sunny by this time thanks to the weather conditions.
Apart from it,if you burn the paddy stubble after 5 PM and plough it overnight, nobody allegedly cares for it, maybe due to the waning image of the present government among peasantry due to its non-failure to pay the compensation to the farmers and heavy floods destroying many districts.
The government may have an eye to the next elections of February 2027 where the farmers community is a major vote bank for any political party.
The subsidized farm machinery is not accessible to all the farmers because those who engulf the subsidy on papers by completing formalities, sit on it without letting it go to the common farmer.
Rs 100 per quintal compensation has not been honored-Kisan Unions
According to the BKU Sidhupur -Ekta, the farmers were supposed to give Rs 100 per quintal for not burning the paddy stubble, but nothing has been given to the farmers apart from some subsidized machinery.
As the harvesting of paddy was delayed by the rains and the wheat sowing dates approached closer, the farmers started burning the stubble during the last week of the 25 October uninterrupted.
If there are cases registered against the farmers in this regard, they are few and unjustified because there is no solution of disposing of the paddy stubble.
Even if the stubble lines of the paddy were allowed to be burnt by the farmers two decades earlier, banning the stubble choppers or repairs, which lead to 100 percent burning while only lines lead to the 25 per cent burning, the situation might have been very different.
Now the farmers burn 100 per cent stubble or have to manage all.
All the techniques of sowing wheat managing stubble into the fields may have some or other flaws.
