Applications accepted for subsidy on farm machinery

Ludhiana: Agriculture and farmers welfare department has approved 960 applications of farmers from Ludhiana district for farm machinery subsidy for paddy straw management. This subsidy is to be provided to the farmers under in-situ Management of Crop Residue Scheme 2019.
Baldev Singh, chief agriculture officer, (CAO) Ludhiana, said, “The farmers would be provided subsidy for purchase of happy seeder, reversible hydraulic MB plough, chopper, zero till drill. 50 percent subsidy will be provided for fitting machinery on combines, and 80 percent subsidy is to be provided to 210 farmer groups. A district-level committee under deputy commissioner Pradeep Kumar Agrawal has issued clearances to the beneficiary farmers for purchase of machinery and the work on issuing of subsidy would also start in coming days so far 960 applications have been approved”
CAO also informed , “Under this scheme, the agriculture and farmers welfare department and cooperative department have jointly given subsidy of Rs 23.68 crore on 2,623 machines to farmers,cooperative societies in district Ludhiana last year and we are expecting more farmers to come forward this time. We once again appeal to the farmers to not burn paddy straw and other crop residue keeping in mind the 550th year Parkash Purab celebrations of Shri Guru Nanak Dev Ji, the first Sikh guru, who have always advocated saving the environment. As many people would be visiting the state to mark the 550th birth year of Guru Nanak Dev Ji it becomes our duty to save environment.” Welcoming the positive move, environmentalist Vijay Arora said, “This is a good initiative by state government to encourage the farmers to give up traditional ways of burning paddy straw which causes pollution. But the agriculture department should also come out with some steps under which the cost of machinery for tacking the problem of paddy straw can be reduced further”