The Agriculture Department will also update the tribunal on action
The state government will present 30 farmers before the National Green Tribunal (NGT) tomorrow in response to the latter’s directive to produce 21 farmers incentivised to check stubble-burning.
The Agriculture Department will also update the tribunal on action taken so far to manage paddy straw at Kalar Majri village of Nabha in Patiala district.
A spokesperson said a detailed list of activities, including providing machines to farmers, would be provided to the NGT. The equipment is already operational across 67 acres, the official added.
The department is also taking steps in six other villages of Patiala district, besides exploring ways and means to provide incentives to farmers not to burn the stubble.
Meanwhile, BKU (Ugrahan) general secretary Sukhdev Singh Kokri Kalan said in case the state did not implement the directions of the tribunal or pay a compensation of Rs200 per acre, the farmers would be forced to burn the stubble.
Although the tribunal did not make farmer unions a party while taking up the petition, it had directed the state in 2015 to initiate steps to help the farmers. This was not done by the state, Kokri Kalan alleged.
Now, farmers were being threatened with cases and ‘red’ entries in the revenue records. Farmers were committing suicide due to debt and were unable to invest in costly farm implements to manage crop residue, which would put an additional burden of Rs6,000-Rs7,000 per acre, he pointed out.
The poor farmers, who were already debt-ridden, cannot afford to spend huge amounts for this purpose, he added.
The union would request the tribunal to order the registration of cases against officials who had done nothing to mitigate the suffering of the farmers, he added.
The BKU (Ekta) condemned the legal action being taken against farmers for burning straw.