Harvesting of Rabi crop with combines is banned in Punjab from 7 pm to 10 am...

Chandigarh, April 7, 2016: Punjab Government has banned the harvesting of Rabi crop with combines from 7 pm to 10 am. These orders will remain enforced till May 31, 2016.
Disclosing this here today, an official spokesperson of the Agriculture Department Punjab said that the harvesting of crop has been banned during night so that the produce could be clean and dry as per the norms and specifications. He said that as crop absorb moisture during night due to dew, thus, its harvesting adversely affected its purchase by procurement agencies. Further movement of operation of combines to night is risky and can be a cause of fatal accidents.
To tackle the problem of stubble burning, he said that the Agriculture Department has provided ultra modern straw choppers to the farmers of the state by providing maximum subsidy on it. In a move to get rid of menace of straw burning in the state, government has already announced an incentive for each district and village with a financial grant of Rs 1 crore and Rs 1 lakh respectively, which were free from the stubble burning across the state. This decision has been taken to curb the practice of stubble burning, which was not only health hazardous but equally detrimental to the fertility of soil. He said that only resorting to punitive measures to end this curse would not yield anything and it would bring desired results only if the people were properly motivated to renounce this anti-environment and pollution causing phenomena.