To ensure that the ongoing paddy procurement goes on smoothly and to make sure farmers do not burn paddy straw, the Punjab government has deputed Principal Secretary level officers for visiting different parts of the state and review the efforts made in this regard. Today, Principal Secretary (Sports) Mr Sanjay Kumar, in the presence of Deputy Commissioner Mr Pardeep Kumar Agrawal, chaired a review meeting with all the concerned officers at Bachat Bhawan, here.During the meeting, Deputy Commissioner Mr Pardeep Kumar Agrawal informed the Principal Secretary (Sports) that there has been a considerable decrease in incidents of burning of paddy straw in 928 villages of Ludhiana district. He stated that last year, 735 incidents of burning of paddy straw were reported, while the incidents were 1240 in the year 2016.He assured that the District Administration is making extra efforts to ensure that farmers are educated about the ill effects of burning of paddy straw. He stated that to keep constant vigil over this issue, nodal officers have been appointed for all villages and a cluster officer has been appointed to supervise the working of 20 such nodal officers. The cluster officer is supervised by BDPO or an SDM level officer.
Besides, all the SDMs have already formed WhatsApp groups in their respective sub divisions so that they can keep a tab on such activities on ground level and cluster officers and other officials are part of these groups. He stated that the moment any person comes to know about any incident of burning of paddy straw, they post it in the group immediately so that timely action can be taken. He said that till date, the District Administration has imposed a fine of Rs 2.32 lakh on violators who set the paddy straw on fire.Mr Sanjay Kumar appreciated the efforts of District Administration Ludhiana and urged them to make extra efforts so that the farmers are made aware about the ill effects of burning paddy straw to our environment as well as our health.The officials from Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Department Punjab informed that they had sought applications from farmers/farmers societies for the purchase of machinery for the effective management of paddy straw. They informed that all the applications received till August 24, 2018, have been approved by the department.Mr Sanjay Kumar asked the Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Department to ensure that this machinery covers all 928 villages of the district so that maximum number of people can be benefitted from this scheme. He also directed the officials to ensure that paddy crop is purchased, lifted and payments made strictly within the timeframe set by the Punjab government.Prominent among those who attended the meeting included ADC (G) Mr Iqbal Singh Sandhu, ADC Khanna Mr Jaspal Singh Gill, all SDM’s and senior officials of District Administration.