There is 12.01% drop in stubble burning cases: Narendra Singh Tomar

NEW DELHI: Amid deteriorating air quality in the National Capital Region (NCR), agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar claimed that stubble burning is not alone responsible for the air pollution. He said that there has been a drop of 12.01% in the stubble burning cases across Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh from last year.

“There were 35717 cases of stubble burning during this period in these states which have come down to 31402,” he said in a statement.

He said that Uttar Pradesh witnessed a significant drop of 48.2% in stubble burning cases while Punjab and Haryana saw a drop of 8.7% and 11.7% respectively from last year.


The drop in stubble burning cases is the manifestation of central government scheme which was launched in 2018. Under this scheme, farmers in NCR have been provided financial assistance to buy farm machinery to switch to cleaner methods of getting rid of the crop residue.

“In this financial year, we have disbursed Rs 594.14 crore to the state governments of Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh to help farmers buy machines. In last fiscal, we had released Rs 584.33 crore for purchasing the machines,” Tomar said in a statement.

He said that financial assistance was provided for buying 56290 machines in last fiscal while 29488 machines have been purchased so far in this financial year.