New Delhi, Nov 5 (IANS): Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar on Monday said that there has been a 12 per cent reduction in incidents of stubble burning in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh in the current year.

As per the ICAR bulletin, the minister said in the same period last year, there were 35,717 incidents of stubble burning which have reduced to 31,402 this year.

There has been a 8.7 per cent decrease in such bio mass fires in Punjab from 27,584 to 25,366. Similarly, in Haryana, there were 5000 such fires in Haryana last year which have reduced to 4,414, a decrease of 11.7 per cent.

In Uttar Pradesh, the stubble burning incidents have reduced drastically by 48.2 per cent from 3,133 to 1,622 in the current year.

Tomar said as part of the scheme to reduce pollution, the Centre had launched a scheme for distribution of machines to curb the practice of stubble burning.

In the year 2018-19, an amount of Rs 1,150 crore was allocated for providing these machines to farmers in the three states. Out of this, Rs 584 crore was disbursed to the states, out of which 56,290 machines were procured through financial assistance provided by the scheme.

Tomar said that in 2019-20, the states of Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and UP, have been provided Rs 594 crore, in which 29,488 machines have been procured and provided to the farmers.

This scheme was rolled out after the directions of the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) in 2017 when measures to tackle air pollution were framed and a committee was set up in the Agriculture Ministry.