Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare (DA&FW)  is primarily supporting the efforts of States of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and NCT of Delhi for combating paddy stubble burning under the Crop Residue Management Scheme being implemented from 2018-19, focusing on both in-situ and ex-situ management of paddy straw.

Under this scheme, financial assistance @ 50% of the cost of machine is provided to the farmers for purchase of crop residue management machinery and @ 80% for the projects costing up to Rs. 30 lakhs is provided to Rural Entrepreneurs (Rural youth & Farmer as an entrepreneur), Cooperative Societies of farmers, Registered Farmers Societies, Farmers Producer Organization (FPOs) and Panchayats for establishment of Custom Hiring Centres (CHCs) of crop residue management machines. The scheme promotes the usage of machines and equipments such as Super Straw Management System, Happy Seeder, Super Seeder, Smart Seeder, Surface Seeder, Zero Till Seed cum Fertilizer Drill etc. for in-situ management of crop residue and Balers & Straw Rakes for collection of straw for further ex-situ utilization.

With a view to enable efficient ex-situ management of paddy straw generated in these States, provisions have been made to establish projects for paddy straw supply chain with financial assistance @ 65% on the capital cost of machinery costing up to Rs. 1.50 crores. The intervention aims at establishing a robust supply chain of paddy straw for various end user industries in biomass power generation and biofuel sectors.

Under this scheme, during the period from 2018-19 to 2024-25 (as on 28 February 2025), an amount of Rs. 3698.45 Crore have been released to these States and Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR).  The States have established more than 41,900 CHCs of crop residue management machines and more than 3.23 lakh crop residue management machines have been supplied to these CHCs and individual farmers of these States.     

As per the reports released by the Consortium for Research on Agroecosystem Monitoring and Modeling from Space (CREAMS) Laboratory, Division of Agricultural Physics, ICAR – Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, the paddy straw burning events between 15th September to 30th November during the last year in the States of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh were 42962, which have been reduced to 18457 events during 2024 for the same period, which indicates 57 percent reduction in paddy straw burning over the last year.

This information was given by Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Shri Ramnath Thakur in a written reply in Lok Sabha today.

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 MG/KSR

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