What the 2024 Crop Residue Management Guidelines Mean For Indian States

The Union government released the latest version of the Crop Residue Management Operational Guidelines in March 2024 to promote better stubble management, especially in the states of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi. The government has been periodically updating these guidelines since they were first introduced after the launch of the Crop Residue Management (CRM) Scheme in 2018. The 2024 guidelines have made an effort to solve the inefficiencies in the previous editions by attempting to improve access to CRM solutions for farmers, ensuring efficient use of CRM machinery, and providing an opportunity to make biomass aggregators more profitable. Doing this can enhance the uptake of crop residue management in states and reduce farm fires.

With the Kharif harvest season in September, which sees a high number of farm fires every year, this blog unpacks the major changes in the 2024 guidelines, their anticipated impact on the adoption of CRM practices, and what the government can do to make these modifications more effective.