Chandigarh, Apr 20 (PTI) The Punjab government has formulated a Rs 500 crore-plan to provide farmers with crop residue management machinery to check stubble burning, Agriculture Minister Gurmeet Singh Khuddian said on Sunday.

The department has invited online applications from farmers to avail of subsidy for procurement of crop residue management (CRM) machines.

Khuddian said in a statement that the state government was offering 50 per cent subsidy to individual farmers and 80 per cent to cooperative societies and gram panchayats to buy CRM equipment.

This initiative aims to make CRM equipment more accessible, promoting its adoption and ultimately contributing to a cleaner environment, he added.

The minister said the subsidy would be available on machinery such as Super SMS, happy seeder, super seeder, surface seeder, smart seeder, zero till drill, baler, rake, shrub master, rotary slasher, and paddy straw chopper, among others.

The department’s administrative secretary Basant Garg said Punjab had witnessed significant progress in crop residue management.

The state government distributed 17,600 subsidised CRM equipment to individual farmers, cooperative societies and panchayats during the previous season. Additionally, 1,331 custom hiring centres were established to facilitate CRM practices.

These efforts resulted in a 70 per cent decrease in stubble burning incidents during the previous season compared to 2023.

Punjab reported 10,909 incidents of stubble burning in 2024 compared to 36,663 in 2023.

Stubble burning in Punjab and Haryana after paddy crop harvest in October and November is often blamed for the rise in air pollution levels in Delhi-NCR.

As the window for the Rabi crop — wheat — is very short after paddy harvest, some farmers set their fields on fire to quickly clear off the residue for sowing of the next crop. PTI CHS SZM SZM