Buoyed by how the Punjab farmers adopted balers to dispose of straw in the just-concluded paddy harvesting season, the commission has based its action plan on the strategies that the states had implemented between 2021 and 2023.It has conveyed to all the district commissioners of Punjab that: “Effective ex-situ management of the state’s large paddy straw output of about 20 million tonnes requires accurate demand mapping of all the projects that use this crop residue as fuel or feedstock. This is to ensure round-the-year supply of processed biomass to the end users in the desired form — of baled straw, briquettes, coarse pallets (for brick kilns), fine pallets and torrefied pellets (for thermal power plants).”
The commission said: “As critical components of the supply chain, all the storage, aggregation, pelleting, briquetting must be mapped in advance. The Supreme Court monitors the burning of crop stubble.” This year, the farmers were keener on ex-situ paddy disposal, using balers in areas with industrial linkages. The industry offers to clear their fields for free in return for the straw bales, even though the state government wants to balance the in-situ and ex-situ efforts.
Formed for improving air quality in the NCR, the commission has referred to its July 2021 advisory that focused on building an ecosystem and a robust supply-chain mechanism to boost the ex-situ utilisation of straw. For the 2024 plan, it has asked the DCs for details of the industal users of biomass, stubble storage facilities and private aggregators that can bale straw, besides the pelleting and briquetting units. They must project the total paddy production and the total straw expected to go into ex-situ utilisation.
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Chhattisgarh government will release the outstanding paddy bonus amount to farmers on December 25, the birth anniversary of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The bonus, owed from the years 2016-17 and 2017-18, will be paid at the rate of Rs 300 per quintal. This move is in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s promise to release outstanding bonus amounts to paddy farmers. The government has also announced repairs of Atal pillars and a cleanliness campaign in urban areas as part of the celebrations.