Will AAP's plan to incentivise Punjab farmers to stop stubble burning work?

Chandigarh: In the past, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Delhi and its counterparts in Punjab were often at loggerheads every time air pollution deteriorated in the national Capital after paddy harvesting in Punjab.

It has been a yearly practice for Punjab farmers to put on fire the paddy crop “leftover” aka stubble in order to clear their fields for the next crop in the month of November. 

Farmers in Haryana also resort to stubble burning but Punjab takes lead in burning cases, massively contributing to the deteriorating air quality index (AQI).

As Punjab reported 76,000 burning cases in 2021 against 6,000 reported in Haryana, a central body, System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR), revealed that the share of stubble burning in Delhi’s heavily polluted air touched a peak of 48% last November 7.

Although the grant worth over 1000 crore was distributed since 2018 to subsidise crop residual machines, farmers, especially those of small and marginal status, did not stop field fires.

With AAP now ruling both Delhi and Punjab, stakes are higher for party convener and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal to effectively deal with the problem as he can no longer pass the buck to Punjab.

Taking a cue from the past whereby farmers demanded cash incentives to stop stubble burning, Kejriwal on Wednesday, July 27, announced a cash subsidy worth Rs 2500 per acre to the farmers of Punjab for not burning stubble this season.

But the success of the plan hinges entirely on the centre’s nod. Kejriwal, in a proposal submitted to the central agency, Commission For Air Quality Management, asked the centre to contribute Rs 1500 per acre while promising to share the remaining Rs 1000 per acre equally from the pockets of the Punjab and Delhi governments.

Several farmer unions and experts welcomed the move. A leading farm economist Devinder Sharma said in a tweet that the AAP party took the right decision to provide cash incentives to farmers for not burning stubble.

Punjab takes the right decision to provide an incentive of Rs 2,500 per acre to farmers for not burning paddy stubble. While Rs 500 each will be paid by Delhi/Punjab, Centre asked to provide Rs 1,500 per acre. Last year, 76k crop burning incidents were reported. @RuchikaMKhanna

— Devinder Sharma (@Devinder_Sharma) July 28, 2022

But in reaction to Devinder Sharma’s tweet, former chairman of Punjab farmers Commission Ajay Vir Jakhar stated that it's not a decision. It's a request which was rejected (by the centre) earlier too. So it is just a point to cast blame, divert narrative and plain politics.

“What happened to the idea of the decomposer on which Delhi govt spent crores of advertising? That is the real question one should be asking,” Jakhar added.

Jakhar was referring to the Delhi government’s 2020 much fanfare strategy to tackle the issue of stubble burning through a bio-decomposer developed by the Indian Agriculture Research Institute (Pusa).

It's not a decision. It's a request which was also rejected earlier.. so it is just a point to cast blame, divert narrative & plain politics.

What happened to the idea of the decomposer on which Delhi govt spent crores advertising? That is the real question one should be asking. https://t.co/ahTHHcidYs

— Ajay Vir Jakhar (@Ajayvirjakhar) July 28, 2022

As per the media reports, the AAP government spent Rs 68 lakh across 2020-21 and 2021-22 on spraying this bio-decomposer. But during the same time period, it spent a whopping Rs 23 crore on advertising the project.

Later when NewsDrum called Jakhar to explain more of his tweet, he said so many farmers voted for AAP in recent Punjab elections just because Kejriwal promised to solve the stubble burning problem through his much cheaper formula of decomposer spray.

“Now AAP is diverting the attention to resort to the same old model of cash subsidy which centre has already rejected in past,” he added.

While AAP Punjab spokesperson Malvinder Kang could not be reached, an AAP leader found nothing wrong in seeking central help to tackle the situation since Punjab has a major share in the central pool when it comes to paddy and wheat contribution.

This cash subsidy is financial support to the farmers in the form of operational cost of crop residue management to achieve zero stubble burning since so many farmers don’t have resources to deal with the problem, hence they are forced to resort to field fires, he added.

“Cash incentive plan does not mean that the government will stop working on solutions to deal with stubble burning. Both in-situ (dissolving within the field) or ex-situ practices (extract the straw and sell it as fodder) will be promoted to help farmers deal with burning issues,” he added.

Nothing new incash subsidy plan

The first proposal of cash subsidy to the farmers came from the subcommittee of the high-level task force that the Supreme Court formed in 2019 to deal with the issue of stubble burning. 

The sub-committee that had members from all affected states had proposed Rs 100 per quintal as an incentive, which like Kejriwal’s latest proposal, would come to the tune of Rs. 2000-2500 per acre.

Based on the recommendation, SC on November 15, 2019, ordered the states of Punjab, Haryana as well as UP to provide Rs. 100 per quintal to those who were yet to burn the stubble.

Following the SC order, Punjab had announced Rs 2500 per acre but failed to disperse not more than 4,000 farmers, as it cited a lack of funds to target lakhs of beneficiaries. Later in 2020, the Centre too refused to help states in bearing cash incentives to farmers, citing a lack of revenue generation in wake of covid situation.

While the centre's latest stand on Kejriwal’s proposal is keenly awaited, there is a general feeling that the Modi government may not give a nod to this proposal since it involves subsidies worth hundreds of crores.

According to Punjab agriculture data, Punjab had close to 60 Lakh acres (25 Lakh hectares) of the area under non-basmati paddy in 2021-22. This means that the state needs more than Rs 1500 crore in order to incentivise all the farmers, which is a huge financial liability.

Given that the stubble burning problem is increasing in other parts of India, the cash incentives to Punjab will then set a precedent for other states to seek similar cash incentives.

There are economists who for long have been advocating for finding a viable commercial model to deal with the stubble problem rather than subsiding crop residue machines or cash incentives to the farmers.

The stubble, as produced after paddy harvesting, is a precious raw material used to produce gas and other by-products in biogas plants. It has now started being used as raw material in paper mill factories too.