It is a stark choice – to spend Rs 2 or Rs 8,000 – and every year farmers in Punjab and Haryana plump for the first option. They spend Rs 2 to buy a box of matches and set paddy stubble on fire to get their fields ready for the next sowing season before Diwali. Nothing has managed to dissuade them so far, despite successive schemes and awareness campaigns launched by the government, not even penalties.Simple economics is at the heart of the worsening menace that chokes Delhi every winter, ET found while travelling through northern India’s rice belt from Sonepat to Karnal.In Ramba village, about 15 kilometres from Karnal, just off national highway (NH) 44, a huge cloud of smoke has engulfed the fields. Around 3.30 pm, it is visible from a kilometre off. The smoke rises and forms a whirlpool of sorts. This is a common site all along the route from Sonepat till Karnal. Fields close to NH44 look freshly turned with no signs of crop residue or stubble burning. Just take the roads into the villages and a pall of smoke engulfs the fields. Villagers say emphatically that there has been a 15-20% dip in stubble burning but it is rampant.After harvest paddy farmers are saddled with a huge amount of stubble or paraali (as it is called in local parlance). Unless the farmer removes this, he cannot sow the next crop. The easiest option before him is setting the stubble on fire. “It is just a small expense of Rs 2 on the matchbox,” said Dilbagh Singh, a farmer in Darar village in Karnal district. “Compare this to what he has to do to prepare his field with machines . A mulcher is required to cut the stubble into small pieces. Then a reversible plough is used to turn it into soil. Then you wait for 15-20 days till the stubble decomposes and then you have to start sowing.” Hiring a mulcher and reversible plough would mean an additional expense os Rs 4,000 per acre. This translates to Rs 8-10,000 for a small farmer who owns a two-three acre landholding on average.Singh said he hasn’t burnt stubble at all this year. “We have enough machines so we have managed. But how can a poor farmer afford so much when hailstorms have damaged crop?” he asked.There are other options, including selling the stubble to paper industries or for ethanol production. But there are no such units in the vicinity. Harjeet Singh of Darar village said, “I have just got in touch with a big company which has sent its balers (a paddy straw bundling machine) to clear out the fields. They are not paying me anything. But at least my fields are empty.” In 2015, he said he had spent money as he hired a baler machine but there were no buyers for the bales. So he spent more on labour to transport them to the side of the road and then was forced to set them on fire.Inside the villages, farmers have stacked their bales near the roads. “If these are set on fire, it is not the farmer’s responsibility,” a farmer said on condition of anonymity. “As sun sets, this is what farmers do.” Earlier this year, the government stepped in to push the farmers towards mechanisation to stop stubble burning and launched a central scheme – Promotion of Agricultural Mechanisation for In-situ Management of Crop Residue. This involved giving 50% subsidy to independent farmers to buy farm implements such as Happy Seeders, mulchers and reversible ploughs. It also offered 80% subsidy to farmer groups who organised themselves in small groups or cooperatives and opened custom hiring centres (CHCs). Though the two crucial states – Punjab and Haryana – have achieved almost 90% of the targets under the scheme, there are several instances of farmers running CHCs burning their stubble.Despite awareness campaigns, farmers remain oblivious. “No matter what machine we use, the residue remains. So we set it on fire,” a farmer who owns 25 acres of land said on condition of anonymity. Asked whether he didn’t fear challans owing to smoke billowing from the fields behind his home, he said, “As long as Gandhiji is there, there’s no problem (referring to currency notes bearing the Mahatma’s image he paid to the ground level staff).”Though there has been a slight dip in stubble burning incidents, the road ahead is long. Dilbagh Singh, who also runs a tractor dealership, said, “There are cheaper options in the market, like decomposers. But farmers don’t know about them. Also, if there are corporate tie-ups, balers can be hired to bundle paddy stubble and sell.”Pushpender Chaudhary, a farmer leader from western Uttar Pradesh said, “The ideal solution is to cut paddy with hand. The government should consider providing farm labour to individuals through MGNREGA (Centre’s flagship rural jobs scheme). In UP, farm labour is available and stubble burning is rare.”