Stubble burning: NGT team should ask govt. to show its report card on action taken

Chandigarh, March 27: Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the Punjab Vidhan Sabha, Harpal Singh Cheema has appealed to the visiting National Green Tribunal (NGT) team not only to give sermons to the farmers over stubble burning in the state but also bring both the Union and State government on board to show what they had done in this regard.

In a statement issued from party headquarters in Chandigarh here on Tuesday, Cheema said AAP was not in favour of burning of crop residue as the exercise posed a potential danger to the living and non-living organisms, including, besides humans, plants, water, air, animals and insects, et al.    

He said that the million-dollar was that do the Punjab farmers do it out of ignorance or just for the heck of it. He added that the farmers do it out compulsion as they have to bear an additional financial burden of rupees thousand per acre to clear the residue, to enable him to sow the next seasonal crop.

Cheema said that the hassled farmer, who was already head over heels in debt, had been left with no finances to meet the expenses on disposing of the crop residue, which he said was the fallout of the anti-farmer policies of the subsequent governments in the state. He demanded that the Union and State governments should come to the rescue of poor farmers and allow special bonus/ subsidy to suffice enough to dispose of the stubble without spending additional money.

He added that the governments should set up high-tech project to generate power out of the stubble in the state. Expressing his satisfaction over marginally tackling the menace, Cheema said the government should not claim the credit for this effort since the farmers had done it by driving hole in their pockets. He urged the visiting NGT team to ask the respective government what they had done to check the menace of stubble burning in the state.