To curb alarming pollution levels in north India, especially during winter months, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on Sunday said it has adopted over 100 villages and 100,000 acres of farm area in Punjab and Haryana to enable zero crop residue burning.

The industry body has adopted Ludhiana, Barnala and Patiala districts in Punjab, and Rohtak, Sirsa and Fatehabad in Haryana.

The CII has created an ecosystem to engage stakeholders, including experts, corporates, State governments, village community and farmer groups, to implement possible solutions to the issue of stubble burning, the chamber said in a statement.

CII is proactively engaging with over 15,000 farmers to provide farm machinery, organise technical trainings and massive awareness drives in the adopted villages of Punjab and Haryana, it said.

Air quality monitors have been installed to monitor village level air pollution data, to measure the impact of reduced stubble burning.

Over 3,000 school students in Punjab, and youth and corporate volunteers are joining CII in this movement to enable zero stubble burning, the chamber said.

The intervention is supporting farmer groups to procure a range of farm machineries, including Happy Seeder, Zero Till, Mulcher, among others, and make these available to farmers on a nominal rent.

The use of these machineries on a shared basis is enabling farmers to adopt in-situ straw management practices, leading to zero stubble burning and sustainable farming, it said.

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