Haryana acted against 1,586 farmers, says minister as he

Haryana State Pollution Control Board acted against 1,586 farmers across the state to curb air pollution due to stubble burning, the state's environment minister Vipul Goel said here today.
The minister attacked Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal claiming that he had not taken any such steps but was doing politics in the name of smog.
In Haryana, cases have been registered against 244 farmers and fines of upto Rs 18.65 lakh have been recovered from 695 farmers, Goel said.
In view of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) orders, the state government is quite serious in dealing with this issue, he said.

Action is being taken against farmers indulging in stubble burning, he said adding that at the same time, they are also being sensitised not to burn the stubble.
But the Delhi's AAP government has not taken any such steps till date, he claimed.

Goel said that even in Delhi, crop residues were being burnt by farmers, but Delhi Government has not taken any action.
Apart from giving subsidies to the farmers, he said that the Haryana government had spent crores of rupees even after making them aware. But Delhi government has completely failed in this regard, he said.
He said that action was taken against 369 farmers in Fatehabad and a fine of Rs 55,000 was recovered from 21 farmers. Action has been taken against 79 people in Hisar, 54 in Jind, 138 in Kaithal, 357 in Karnal, 184 in Kurukshetra, six in Panchkula, 40 in Panipat and 301 in Sirsa, he said.

So far, a fine of Rs 18.65 lakh had been recovered from farmers, he added.
The minister appealed to the farmers not to burn crop the residue.
"For this, the government is providing them equipment on subsidy basis. The fertility of land is also decreasing because of the burning of crop residues as this would cause loss to farmers in coming days," he said.