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UP,
Bihar
labourers find jobs at home,
Punjab
agriculture hit
Mansewak Singh
 CHANDIGARH:
At a time when major ideological fights across the world are being
impacted by economic models, there is need for the Sikh community to
deal with a rather intriguing problem of migrant labour in Punjab.
Here are the main thought markers: 1. Much of Punjab's agriculture
has increasingly come to depend on migrant labour from UP and Bihar;
2. Migrants by definition are not voluntary migrants but are forced
by the economic realities and lack of opportunities back home to
land up in Punjab and work in the fields; 3. As a rule, the Sikh
community must stand for opportunities for all, and it can only hail
the achievements of schemes like NREGA in India which is providing
for at least basic employment to populace in backward states. In
fact, Sikhism's universal values only make us wish that these hard
working people get even better wages and opportunities. 4. But
better wages and good opportunities in Bihar and UP is cutting down
the flow of cheap migrant labour which is affecting the farming
activity, largely undertaken by Sikh farmers.
Many reports in
this paddy-sowing season have talked of the peasantry facing a heavy
shortage of labour. Migrant labourers, mainly from Uttar Pradesh and
Bihar who have been the mainstay of the state’s agricultural
economy for the past several decades, have not come to Punjab this
time.
Desperate
farmers in Punjab are making a beeline for railway stations across
the state waiting for migrant labourers and are offering double the
wages. There have been reports of the migrants even getting offers
of liquor and drugs.
Farmers, said
one report, were offering wages up to Rs 2,000 for transplanting
paddy in one acre, which is more than double the wages given last
year.
The Agriculture
Department estimates a requirement of nearly seven lakh labourers
for sowing paddy over 26 lakh hectares in Punjab this season. Only
50 per cent of the requirement has reached
Punjab
so far, according to estimates.
Ironically, in
the midst of these frenetic activities, a special appeal has come
from the Bihar government asking migrant labourers from the state to
come back home.
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Thought markers for Punjabis
* Good farming economics cannot continue to depend on sub-human
wages or exploitation of migrant labour.
* One can only hail the fact that some govt schemes are
providing labourers in Bihar and UP avenues to earn a living in
their homestate itself.
* But lack of labour is hitting Punjab farming.
* Solution lies in making Agriculture more viable, wages for
labour better and pushing for adherence to non-exploitative
minimum wages rules. |
The special
message is in the form of an appeal on behalf of Bihar Chief
Minister Nitish Kumar and Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi
asking the migrant labourers, who want to return home, but are being
held back as bonded/forced labour in different places outside the
state, to approach a special office in Bihar Bhawan in Delhi.
The appeal,
which has been published in select newspapers, promises government
intervention in getting them freed and transporting them back home
on government expenditure.
A spokesman of
the Centre of Indian Trade Unions said the
Bihar
government’s appeal was a welcome step and was aimed at striking at
the unfair labour practices in some states where labourers were
facing oppression.
One of the
several reasons for shortfall of migrant labour in
Punjab
has been attributed to the success of the National Rural Employment
Guarantee Scheme, particularly in
Bihar which has
started absorbing a large chunk of native labour within the state.
In order to tide
over this crisis, the Punjab government has provided 700 paddy
transplanting machines to the farmers so far by offering a subsidy
of Rs 1.5 lakh for machines that cost between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 12
lakh.
Agriculture
experts believe that introduction of technology on a mass scale was
the only solution to mitigate the shortfall of farm hands in the
long run.
24
June 2009
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