5 sarpanches lauded for zero crop burning

GURUGRAM: State agriculture minister OP Dhankar felicitated five sarpanches from Sohna for zero crop residue burning in their villages in a function held in Karnal on Saturday. Sarpanches Sapna Devi from Sarmathla, Vijay Pal from Kuliaka, Om Prakash from Silani, Bala Devi from Khupuri and Ajay Pal from Loh Singani were felicitated.
A meeting was also held for gram sarpanches on implementing the Supreme Court ban on crop residue burning and raising awareness about its harmful effects.

Babu Lal Kudawala, district in-charge of crop residue management, said: “In Sohna block of Gurugram district, paddy is grown on around 2,000 hectares of land. Around 90% of villagers in Sohna are involved in farming. It is quite heartening that they have responded positively to the awareness campaigns held against residue burning.”

The sarpanches said they made villagers aware about the ill-effects of smoke from the fires on their health to convince them to stop crop stubble burning. Sapna Devi, who became an asthmatic three years ago due to the smoke, said: “I gave villagers my own example and told them that that they too would fall prey to diseases such as asthma if the smoke emitted by crop residue burning continued to envelop the village. Not a single farmer has burnt crop residue in the village for the last two years now.”