Crop Residue Management Initiative
Air quality in north India has declined rapidly over the last decade, with crop residue burning in North-Western states being a significant cause. To mitigate crop residue burning and promote sustainable agriculture, the CII Foundation launched a Crop Residue Management (CRM) initiative in 2018 in 19 Punjab villages as a pilot project. The initiative emerged through CII’s collaboration with NITI Aayog in 2017 to study the issue of stubble burning and air pollution.
The impact of the pilot project interventions was notable: 80% of farmers adopted no-stubble burning practices, and 75% of intervened farmland became stubble-burning free in 2018, compared to 3.5% in 2017.
Over the years, the CII Foundation expanded the project into a multi-stakeholder partnership involving the government, industry, agricultural universities, and the farming community. Partners and supporters include Birlasoft, Apraava Energy, Cadence, Fidelity International, Goodyear, Indian Oil Corporation Ltd, PTC Financial Services Limited, HDFC Bank, SBI Card, Northern Region Farm Machinery Training and Testing Institute (NRFMTTI), Guru Nanak National College, Doraha, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, IIT, Cummins, BPCL, ONGC, Royal Enfield, ReNew Power, RAU Study Circle, and the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM).
