BAREILLY: In a matter of hours, 22 lakh bees Dharmendra Kumar had been rearing for three years at Bamroli village in UP’s Shahjahanpur were charred to death when stubble fire from a field next to his spread.
While the Supreme Court has asked UP, Haryana and Punjab to crack down on stubble burning to control air pollution, this was not a fallout that had been accounted for earlier.
“I have suffered a loss of nearly Rs 2 lakh. I am devastated,” the 25-year-old farmer from Jalalabad told TOI. He has filed a complaint, on the basis of which a non-cognizable report was registered by the police.
After finishing postgraduate studies, Dharmendra had signed up for beekeeping training in Pipraula village. In 2017, he secured a loan of Rs 2.5 lakh under the Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme and started his apiary with 50 hive boxes. Each hive box cost Rs 4,500. He was rearing honey bees, the production had been good and his business created a buzz. “I wanted to start a trend in these parts.” So, he scaled things up and got 60 more boxes. “Each hive produced nearly 25kg honey.” Besides honey production, bees play an important role as pollinators in crop production.
Last Sunday, the owner of a farm next to his, Manoj Singh, set fire to the stubble. The fire spread by accident and all his hive boxes were charred. “All I could recover were ashes. Instead of flying away, worker bees try and save the queen bee — it’s how they behave.” Singh refused to compensate for his losses. “I have moved whatever little was left of the hive boxes. I am waiting for the police to help. I had a word with the Khadi and Village Industries Commission too, but they said no aid could be claimed because beekeeping is classified as ‘movable work’,” he said. The body has, however, been involved in promoting apiculture across the country for years now.
SHO of Kaanth police station Bahadur Singh told TOI, “We have registered an NCR under Section 427 of the IPC (mischief causing damage). The FIR for stubble burning is registered on the basis of the complaint of a lekhpal. We are waiting for an official complaint for that. Because it is a non-cognizable offence so far, the accused cannot be arrested right now.”