Farmers face labour shortage

Manmeet Singh Gill

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, June 19

The shortage of labour during paddy transplantation season, especially the areas near the city, has pushed the per-acre remuneration for one-acre paddy transplantation to Rs 3,500. While the rates in most of the rural areas are around Rs 2,500 to Rs 2,800 per acre, the villages near the city have seen a steep rise.

Farmers say local labourers in villages near the city prefer working in factories or at shops in the city. A resident of Tabowali village, Harnam Singh, said, “Though fields near the city have 24-hour power supply, due to shortage of labour, the work of paddy transplantation is yet to start in these villages.”

Another farmer, Sahib Singh, said that as the arrival of labour from UP and Bihar has gone down in the last few years, the problem is witnessed every season. He said that many farmers were now thinking of engaging paddy transplanter machines to complete the work. However, as the nursery for machine is grown differently for manual transplanting, farmers are not in a position to use the machines either as they do not have the required nursery.

Ranbir Singh Randhawa, an engineer with Agriculture Department, said they were planting paddy with machines in different villages on trial basis so that farmers may be encouraged to make use of the same in next season. He said that around five machines were already working in the district and they had received more applications for machines on subsidy.

Randhawa said a walk-behind machine could transplant three acres a day with only two men while at least 15 men need a day to transplant paddy in the same area. He said riding-type machines could transplant 8 to 10 acres a day.