Lucknow, Nov 10 : Uttar Pradesh Agriculture Minister Surya Pratap Shahi said the menace of stubble burning has been brought down by almost 70 per cent as compared to last year in the state. Stating that the air pollution issue in Delhi cannot be turned into a political debate, the Supreme Court had pointed out how children in the national capital are going through health issues because of the pollution. Shahi maintained that the state government was committed to abide by the apex court's order, but the fact remains that nothing can happen overnight. 'It will take some time. We are penalisng the violators and incentivizing stubble management. At the same time, concerted steps were being taken to educate the farmers and make them more and more aware,' he said. He said that the state government has been apprising the court about the steps taken for stubble management. 'Uttar Pradesh is the least problematic state and the court does acknowledge this." The Minister said that the state government plans to increase its focus on incentivizing stubble management with the help of dedicated Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs). He said that compressed Biogas plants using stubble have already been set up in Gorakhpur and Badaun. The one in Gorakhpur is being set up by Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) while the Badaun plant has been set up by BPCL. For this, the state government has given equipment to the FPOs at heavily subsidised rates to dispose of stubble efficiently. Agriculture department officials said that the incidents of stubble burning dropped from just over 3,000 cases in 2022 to a little under 1,000 cases until October this year in UP. According to figures released by the Centre last week, during the 45 days period of the current paddy harvesting season (September 15 to October 29), a total stubble burning incidents in Haryana, Punjab, NCR, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi have come down from 13,964 in the corresponding period in 2022 to 6,391 this year -- a reduction of around 54 per cent. Records show that in 2021 11,461 incidents of stubble burning were reported. This way, the incidents went up between 2021 and 2022. The ministry of environment and climate change had stated that a series of interventions by various stakeholders including frequent review and daily monitoring have resulted in bringing down stubble burning incidents significantly in the last two years. /IANS