This post is created by The Better India and sponsored by Wingify Earth.

Winters in the National Capital are synonymous with two things — temperatures that dip to single digits and air quality that worsens by the day.

Every year during the harvest season in winter, the air quality in North India sees a significant decline as farmers begin to burn the excess paddy straw left behind.

The infamous practice of stubble burning, though essential to clear the field and prepare it for the new season, is also detrimental to health.

This year, Sukhbir Agro Energy Limited, a biomass power plant in Punjab's Ferozepur, has a solution to this menace — converting the stubble into electricity.

The initiative will enable farmers in Punjab to sell their paddy to the company and earn an income from it.

The General Manager of the plant, Satish Bedi explains to ANI, “The power plant's capacity is 18 MW per hour. It is stubble-based and uses 600 tonnes of stubble in a day and around 2-2.25 lakh tonnes of stubble in a year. If 24-26 plants like this are set up in Punjab, we would generate a lot of electricity for the state. This will resolve the environmental problem and also eliminate the stubble burning problem.”

Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) has three thermal power plants in the state to use paddy stubble as fuel to the extent of 10 per cent of total annual coal use.

 

#WingifyEarth encourages such proactive initiatives.

#WingifyEarth in partnership with 'The Better India'