Chandigarh, June 10
A new crisis has gripped the Punjab farmer this paddy season with a severe reduction in the arrival of migrant labour from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh increasing paddy transplantation costs by the double.
The state farmer, who had been restrained by the government from going in for sowing of paddy till today to deal with the problem of ground water depletion, now has to contend with transplanting paddy in 27,000 hectares without the required hands at his disposal.
Farmers had started booking labourers at Rs 850 per acre around one month ago, even though the rate last year was Rs 600 per acre. Now, however, with the number of labourers coming from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh going down drastically, the rates have shot up between Rs 1,200 and Rs 1,500 per acre in most parts of the state.
With migrant labour in short supply, women are being engaged in many places to do the job. Gurdarshan Singh of Ganga village near Bathinda says besides women, children of local labourers are also being engaged in paddy transplantation as they are on summer vacation. Punjabi labourers, who have in the past decade or so taken up jobs in urban areas, are also being persuaded by farmers to bail them out.
Labourers willing to plant paddy are being offered beds with mattresses, home-cooked meals, non-vegetarian
food and even liquor, says Angrej Singh of Udaykaran village in Muktsar district. Another farmer Gurdeep Singh says farmers are also going to the neighbouring Rajasthan and Haryana but are coming back empty-handed.
Hardev Singh of Jaisinghwala, near Bathinda, says farmers are thronging railway stations every day but only few labourers are arriving. A few of them say publication of the ban on early transplantation has also resulted in delay in movement of the labourers from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
The ban on early sowing means the paddy season is no longer staggered. Jagir Singh of Bodi Kalan village in Ludhiana says the government should have planned out separate schedules for different districts.
Kishan Dev, a labourer from Bihar, says the number of labourers is less this time because people back home are now being paid nearly as much as they are getting here. Besides, they are also moving in large numbers to work in SEZs in Orissa and Karnataka where they are being paid more than the prevailing rates in Punjab.
Bharatiya Kisan Union (Rajewal) leader Balbir Singh Rajewal says the only way out of the crisis is mechanised transplantation. He is of the view that the government can help by supplying paddy transplanters, which cost around Rs 10 lakh each, to cooperatives societies.
With inputs from Sanjeev Singh Bariana and Puneet Pal Singh Gill
