Computerised draw of lots for farm equipment subsidy held

Tribune News Service
Ludhiana, September 14

To motivate the farming community to restrain from burning crop residue, the Punjab Government has been providing subsidy on paddy straw management equipment. The subsidy is being provided under the In-Situ Crop Residue Management scheme for the year 2020-2021.

To select the beneficiaries of the scheme, a computerised randomisation draw was held under the supervision of Ludhiana Deputy Commissioner (DC) Varinder Kumar Sharma at the DC Office on Monday.

The DC said through this draw 698 farmers were selected in the category of “Individual Farmers” and 100 groups were selected in the category of “Custom Hiring Centres”.

He said under the individual farmer category, 126 super straw management systems (SMS), 162 mulchers, 13 happy seeders and 142 mould board ploughs will be provided with a subsidy. He said all 25 applications submitted by the scheduled caste farmers have been accepted in the first phase of the scheme while the remaining applications have been placed on the waiting list for the next phase of the scheme.

He said that under the custom hiring centre category, 100 groups have been selected for the first phase, including five scheduled caste groups, eight gram panchayats, eight cooperative societies and 62 such village groups, which had not got subsidy in the last two years.

In addition, Deputy Commissioner said that 76 applications received in the baler/rake category were also randomly drawn computerised so that approval could be issued as per the targets.

Sharma urged the farmers to restrain from burning paddy stubble. He said that the appeal was more important this time as people are already facing breathing problems due to lack of oxygen amid the Covid-19 epidemic.