SAS Nagar, September 30:- The district administration has been undertaking awareness as well as enforcement campaigns to curb the farm fires in SAS Nagar to abide by the instructions issued by the Supreme Court of India and the National Green Tribunal.
Divulging the details Deputy Commissioner Aashika Jain said that the officials from the Agricultural and coordinating departments have been reaching out to the farmers in the villages to make them aware of the Crop Residue Machinery available in the district. They were also told about the online app Unnat Kisan developed by the Government of Punjab available on Android and Apple platforms for locating the machinery in their proximity. The app has information (updated from time to time) of the machinery owners that can be hired on rent by the farmers for in-situ as well as ex-situ disposal of stubble without setting it on fire.
Besides it, mapping of a number of baler operators has been done with the industrial units having a handsome capacity to use stubble bales as fuel. The district has also offered sites for dumping/storage of the bales of stubble meant for use of industrial units as prepared by baler operators.
Deputy Commissioner Aashika further said that ADCs of the district have been deputed as the supervisory officers of the sub-divisions where SDMs have been tasked with overall responsibility of their respective sub-divisions. ADC Viraj S Tidke to look after the Kharar Sub Division while Damanjit Singh Mann Derabassi and Sonam Chaudhary Mohali.
Awareness and enforcement campaigns have been going side by side, said the Deputy Commissioner adding that so far the satellite observation has reported five incidents of farm fire out of which three were found not the cases of farm fires on visiting these sites while two were confirmed in Sinhpur and Rauni where an environment compensation of Rs 7500 imposed besides marking red entries in revenue records.
She appealed to the farmers to not to indulge in farm fires and get the benefit of Crop Residue Machinery management available in their proximity to manage the stubble without setting it on fire.