In consonance with the commitment of the Punjab government led by Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann to check the menace of paddy straw burning, the State Cooperative Banks across the State, have launched the Crop Residue Management loan scheme.
Speaking about the scheme, the Chief Minister said that the main aim is to make rural credit available easily for farmers to purchase machinery for proper crop Residue management in order to check the environmental pollution caused due to paddy straw burning. He said that the scheme has been introduced in State Cooperative Bank in Chandigarh and 802 branches of the District Cooperative banks. Bhagwant Singh Mann said that the farmers can avail the benefits of this scheme through a simple and easy procedure.
The Chief Minister said that the Primary Agriculture Cooperative Societies(PACs) in villages and other progressive farmers can avail the benefits of this scheme. He said that the Primary Agriculture Cooperative Societies or other entities can avail benefit of 80% subsidy on purchase of agriculture equipments under the Common Hiring Centre(CHC) scheme. Likewise, Bhagwant Singh Mann said that the progressive farmers will be entitled for 50% subsidy on purchase of agriculture implements for crop residue management like balers and superseeders.
The Chief Minister envisioned that the scheme will go a long way in reducing environmental pollution caused due to paddy straw burning. Likewise, he also said that the scheme will be also instrumental in encouraging the farmers to opt for the crop residue management. Bhagwant Singh Mann, while reiterating the firm commitment of the state government to ensure the welfare of the farmers by all possible means and urged the farmers to avail the benefits of this scheme.
The Chief Minister said that the major thrust is to reduce the amount of pollution generated when stubble is burnt and to encourage more industry-farmer participation in the agri-residue supply chain to support bio-energy plants. He hoped that this initiative will help in avoiding this pollution through the establishment of an agri-residue biomass supply chain from the farmers to the bioenergy industry. Bhagwant Singh Mann said that power generation units, compressed biogas (CBG) plants, 2G ethanol factories, could strengthen their feedstock supply chain and benefit the biofuel industry as a whole from this step.
The Chief Minister said that supply chain will be established through a cluster based approach in the vicinity of various industries utilizing the paddy straw. He said that the supply chain beneficiaries will collect, densify, store the paddy straw at desired locations and will make available the same to various users or industries
as per requirement. Bhagwant Singh Mann said that repayment period of loan will be five years and repayable in 10 half yearly instalments June 30 and January 31 annually.