Wednesday , 19 February 2025

Co-operative Banks offer loans at up to 80 per cent subsidy for crop waste management..!

As part of the commitment of the Punjab government led by Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann to tackle the menace of stubble blowing, cooperative banks across Punjab have launched the ‘Crop Residue Management Loan Scheme’.

Elaborating on this, the Chief Minister said that the main objective of this scheme is to make loans easily available to farmers for purchasing machinery for proper management of crop residues so that environmental pollution caused by stubble burning can be prevented. He said that this scheme has been started in 802 branches of State Cooperative Bank Chandigarh and District Cooperative Banks. Bhagwant Singh Mann said that farmers can take advantage of this scheme through a simple and easy method.

The Chief Minister said that Primary Agricultural Cooperative Societies (PACs) of villages and other progressive farmers can avail the benefit of this scheme. He said that primary agriculture cooperative societies or other institutions can avail 80 percent subsidy on the purchase of agricultural implements under the Common Hiring Center (CHC) scheme. Bhagwant Singh Mann said that similarly progressive farmers would be entitled to 50 per cent subsidy on the purchase of agricultural implements like balers and superseeders for crop residue management.

The Chief Minister expressed hope that this scheme would prove helpful in reducing environmental pollution caused by stubble burning. He also said that the scheme would also help encourage farmers to opt for alternative crop residue management. Bhagwant Singh Mann reiterated the firm commitment of the state government to ensure the welfare of the farmers in every possible way and urged the farmers to take advantage of this scheme.

The Chief Minister said that the main emphasis is on promoting greater involvement of industry-farmers in the agri-waste supply chain to support bio-energy plants to reduce pollution caused by stubble burning. He hoped that this initiative would help avoid this pollution by channeling agricultural waste to the bio-energy industry through the biomass supply chain.

Bhagwant Singh Mann said that power generation units, compressed biogas (CBG) plants, 2G ethanol factories can strengthen their supply chain based on crop residues and this step will help the biofuel industry as a whole. can be beneficial.

The Chief Minister said that the supply chain will be established through a cluster based approach around various industries using straw. He said that the beneficiaries of the supply chain will collect, compress and store the straw at required locations and make it available to different users or industries as per requirement. Bhagwant Singh Mann said that the loan repayment period on the machinery will be five years and the loan will be repayable in 10 half-yearly installments on June 30 and January 31 annually.

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