Vibha Sharma
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, November 3
On a day the Punjab CM penned an emotional letter to PM Narendra Modi and his Haryana counterpart to plan a strategy to address air “emergency”, the fact is unless the two states diversified “substantially” from the water-guzzling rice, there could be no permanent solution to the deadly smog looming large over plains of the North.
Officials say the Modi government had already shown the way by extending the ambit of the ethanol blended petrol (EBP) programme to surplus quantities of maize, jawar, bajra and fruit/vegetable waste. Earlier, only excess sugarcane production was allowed to be converted into ethanol for procurement under the fuel-blending programme.
“The decision is aimed at benefiting farmers by enabling them to make additional money from surplus production and broaden the sources for producing ethanol for the EBP programme and also to encourage them to diversify to crops like maize which are also supported by good prices now,” they say.
While crop diversification strategies adopted by the Punjab and Haryana governments have prompted farmers to plant less rice, they say it is miniscule compared to what is required in the current environmental conditions.
from The Tribune https://ift.tt/34uiCxA
via Today’s News Headlines
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