The government has revised the crop residue management guidelines enabling efficient ex-situ management of paddy straw generated in the states of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi.
As per the revised guidelines, techno-commercial pilot projects for Paddy Straw Supply Chain will be established under the bilateral agreement between the Beneficiary/Aggregator (Farmers, rural entrepreneurs, Cooperative Societies of Farmers, Farmers Producer Organizations (FPOs) and Panchayats) and Industries utilising the paddy straw.
The government shall provide financial assistance on the capital cost of machinery and equipment. The required working capital may be financed either by the Industry and Beneficiary jointly or by utilising the Agriculture Infrastructure Fund (AIF), NABARD Financial, or Financing from the Financial Institutions by the beneficiary. The land for storage of the collected paddy straw will be arranged and prepared by the beneficiary as may be guided by the end-use industry.
Project proposal-based financial assistance will be extended for machines and equipment such as Higher HP Tractor, Cutters, Tedder, Medium to Large Balers, Rakers, Loaders, Grabbers and Telehandlers which are essentially required for the establishment of a paddy straw supply chain. State governments shall approve these projects through a project sanctioning committee.
The government will provide financial support @ 65% of the project cost, the Industry as the primary promoter of the project will contribute 25% and will act as the primary consumer of the feedstock collected and a farmer, a group of farmers, rural entrepreneurs, cooperative societies of farmers, Farmers Producer Organisations (FPOs) or Panchayats will be the direct beneficiary of the project and will contribute the balance ten per cent.
The outcomes of the above interventions are: the initiative will supplement the efforts of paddy straw management through in-situ options.
During the three-year tenure of the interventions, 1.5 million metric tonnes of surplus paddy straw are expected to be collected which would otherwise have been burnt in fields.
About 333 biomass collection depots of capacity 4500 MT will be built in the States of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Air pollution caused by stubble burning will be considerably reduced.
It would generate employment opportunities of about 9,00,000 man-days.
The interventions will encourage a robust supply chain management of paddy straw which shall further help in making paddy straw available for various end uses i.e., power generation, heat generation, bio-CNG, etc. by Power/bio-CNG/bio-ethanol producers
The establishment of a supply chain would result in new investments in Biomass to biofuel and energy sectors.
