Dole for farmhands

It is poll season, and it is raining sops in Punjab. A couple of days earlier, state government employees were promised the lollipop of a pay raise by the Capt Amarinder Singh government. Before that, debt-ridden marginal farmers were dangled the carrot of a loan waiver and small tillers promised coverage in the subsequent phases. Now, it is the turn of the poor landless farmhands for a share of the pie. That this hitherto neglected class of needy labourers is deemed to be good insofar as ameliorating their economic lot is concerned — notably, for the first time — is a worthy thought. Even if it is driven by vote-bank politics. Ever since last month’s wresting of power by the Congress from the BJP in three states largely being attributed to a rural backlash, both the BJP and Congress are outdoing each other in their bid to woo the peasants. 

The landless farmhands, though being one of the most deprived and disadvantaged strata of the rural segment, often escape the politicians as well as policy makers’ eye for want of data about their plight. It is in this context that the Punjab Khet Mazdoor Union survey conducted in 2017 assumes importance. The survey throws up staggering figures. It says that 85 per cent of the farm labourers are under debt of an average of nearly Rs 91,000. Their predicament is exacerbated since the loans are usually doomed to be perpetual liabilities. For, they are forced to turn to moneylenders, micro-finance companies and landlords for borrowings. Cultivating land in the harsh sun and rain is perhaps less backbreaking for the hardy farmhand than the huge pound of flesh that is extracted from him as interest at cripplingly high rates of 18 to 60 per cent.   

The Congress government’s proposal to waive loans of up to Rs 50,000 taken from agricultural societies intends to benefit 3.7 lakh farmhands. The cash-strapped state will need ingenuity to mop up the Rs 600 crore required for the scheme. Though, for a long-term solution to the agrarian distress, more than popular palliatives need to be rolled out. That would be truly ingenious.