Punjab farmers reap bitter NREGA harvest [Chandigarh]
0 Comments | Times of India, The, Jun 14, 2010 | by Sharma, Parvesh
PATIALA: A cooler beats the intense heat as five tanned men sit around the lavish fare on the table, catching the latest Bollywood flick on a local channel. A neat row of beds awaits them for a well-deserved rest at night. And, there is even a vase of flowers in the room.
Not a club room or a hotel. It’s a labour camp in the heart of rural Punjab, where signs of pampering are evident. For, the times have changed. It is peak paddy sowing season and unlike previous years, labourers to work in the field are scarce. The prosperous Punjabi farmer, who had labourers coming in hordes from impoverished villages of central India to work on his fields, now has a tough competitor – the NREGA.
With jobs being created back home under the scheme, few are now willing to undertake back-breaking work, literally, involving hours of bending to plant saplings, submerged knee-deep in the paddy fields in the middle of scorching heat and searing moisture. This has made retaining migratory labour force a big problem for Punjab, which is heavily dependent on farmhands from central India.
Those who have trickled in have realized their worth and are demanding facilities unheard of and the rich farmers are giving in.
Besides the TV, cooler, freshly cooked food and accommodation, the labourers are now welcome to live in the houses of farm-owners and not in some dilapidated tubewell room out in the farm. Wages have also gone up three-fold. Farmers say seasonal wages have increased from a mere Rs 700 to Rs 2,000-Rs 2,500 per acre, in just about two years.
For labourers arriving at the Rajpura railway station in trains from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, it is something their predecessors never could dream of here. The situation is no different in the rest of the state where migratory labourers were always preferred over local farm hands for the cheap wages that they asked for.
The shortage of migrant labour is forcing farmers to camp at railway stations. As trains halt, its a signal for the waiting farmer to start a race and jostle with other farmers to convince migrants by offering good wages, food and even entertainment.
”Just five years ago, not a single farmer ever bothered to visit the railway station as groups of migrants used to go from door-to-door asking for work,” says Gurnam Singh, a farmer who has been waiting at the station for more than 24 hours to put together his work force.
”I have managed to hire just eight migrants after waiting 24 hours at the station. I have offered them a room with a cooler and television. They threatened they would leave my fields if I didn’t provide all that was promised,” said Sukhwinder Singh from Mavi village.
And, the cut-throat competition among Punjabi farmers to hire labourers can put an MNC to shame
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