On World Environment Day, HDFC Bank through its CSR programme Parivartan in partnership with CII Foundation, reported progress under its Crop Residue Management (CRM) initiative. Under the programme, 88% of 3,78,425 acres of farmland were covered in efforts aimed at preventing stubble burning across Punjab and Haryana in the 2025 season. The initiative spans 86,000 farmers across more than 380 villages in Ludhiana and Sangrur districts of Punjab and Fatehabad district of Haryana, and is positioned as a private-sector-led effort addressing agricultural air pollution in North India.

Stubble burning post rice cultivation has been pointed out as one of the factors responsible for air pollution in winters in northern India that causes problems related to respiratory and cardiovascular health. When one ton of rice stubble is burned, around three kilograms of particulates are emitted into the atmosphere. Moreover, this practice robs the land of its important nutrients. While there has been a significant drop in stubble burning cases by 53 percent in the states of Punjab and Haryana in 2025, the small farmers face difficulty owing to machinery and time constraints.

The three-year project which was initiated in October 2023 in Ludhiana has now been extended to include Sangrur and Fatehabad in 2024, under the aegis of CII Foundation. Under the scheme, 380 villages have been covered till date, out of which eight villages have stopped burning altogether whereas 174 villages have succeeded in not burning more than 90% of the

Nusrat Pathan, Head – CSR, HDFC Bank states that the problem involves economic limitations, resource availability, and lack of knowledge about the issues. This programme takes care of these issues by ensuring availability of machines through the cooperative tool bank system, behavior changes, and ex-situ approaches like biogas and composting.

As part of this programme, nearly 450 agricultural implements such as baler, super seeder, smart seeder, and mitti seeder have been supplied to about 140 farmer cooperatives or FPOs, making them available for hiring to the farmers. Nearly 800 tractors have also been made available to hire during peak stubble management times. The use of equipment is not only helpful in the practice of in-situ residue management, mulching, and incorporating paddy straw into soil but also helps in doing sowing and fertilisation in one go. Cost involved in stubble management and sowing is said to have gone down from ₹2,000-₹2,500 per acre to ₹800-₹1,200 per acre, among others.

Farmers not adopting in-situ methods use baler machines for mechanical collection and bundling of straw. More than 30 village youth have been supported to operate baler-based services for straw aggregation and related activities. The programme also includes 18 paddy straw-based biogas units, along with two bio-pelletisation plants and one bio-fertiliser plant under development for ex-situ straw management.

Various awareness programs including village-level meetings, workshops, and training sessions for farmers were conducted through collaboration with the Agriculture Department.

According to Chandrakant Pradhan, Lead - Climate Resilience, CII Foundation, the program has led to increased participation from communities, where farmers use in-situ management systems and affect other farmers to follow suit in their villages. Some areas of Ludhiana, Sangrur, and Fatehabad districts have seen increasing adoption of non-burning systems in two to three years’ time.

The examples quoted include Gurmeet Singh, hailing from Cheema village in Ludhiana, who adopted CRM in 2023 and observed decreased residue management costs, and Paramjeet Singh of Lamba village, Fatehabad, who was able to benefit due to easy availability of the super seeder owned by the cooperative.

The project is supposed to continue till 2026-27 and will involve further expansion in other villages along with improved ex-situ straw management infrastructure in the region.