Summary:
The leaders have also called a meeting on Wednesday where the matter would be discussed at length. He said they would raise the issue with the CM’s chief principal secretary Suresh Kumar, with whom they already have scheduled a meeting on Tuesday. Subsequently, the NGT had asked the Centre to allocate funds and that Punjab had got Rs 679 crore to help farmers manage the crop residue.Rajewal claimed that without considering directions issued by the NGT, the state government came up with a scheme to offer 50% subsidy to individual farmers and 80% subsidy to the societies for buying stubble management equipment. “But the market price of equipment escalated by 50%, virtually wiping off the subsidy that is being promised,” he said.Rajewal said the new machines cost lakhs of rupees and farmers, with their limited resources, were unable to buy those.Besides, the cost of operating these had to be taken into consideration, he said.“These machines need 80 horsepower tractors, while most of the farmers have 30-35 horsepower tractors. The straw management system machines being used along the combine harvesters have rendered the happy speeders unfit for use in the fields, as the shredded stubble gets trapped in its nozzles,” he said.“The farmers are going to put all these facts before the high court and seek appropriate directions to the state government,” said Rajewal.Meanwhile, BKU (Dakaunda) general secretary Jagmohan Singh said the farmers have taken a strong exception to the statement given by the chief minister..