No migrants to transplant paddy, Haryana farmers worried

Parveen Arora

Tribune News Service

Karnal, June 11

With only four days left for the paddy transplantation to kick off officially, anxiety prevails among the farming community over the arrival of migrant labourers on whom they rely on for paddy sowing.

Farmers have prepared their fields and the nursery (paddy) is also ready, but they have no clue as to when the migrant labourers would come.

The farmers are approaching local labourers who are demanding higher prices in comparison to migrant labourers. The migrant labourers used to charge Rs 2,200-2,700 per acre while the locals are demanding Rs 3,500-4,000 per acre.

The farmers had to face a similar problem in the wheat harvesting season as the Covid outbreak had created a labour crisis when migrant labourers had gone back to their native states.

Farmer Balwan Singh from Uchani village has prepared his fields to transplant paddy on 25 acres and nursery (paddy) is ready, but he is worried due to non-availability of migrant labourers.

“I have prepared my fields, but so far I have no confirmation from labourers of Bihar as to when they will come. I have contacted the local labourers, but they are demanding almost double than migrant labourers,” said Balwan Singh.

A group of farmers has sent a bus to Sitamarhi district in Bihar to bring the labourers back to their fields. “We have hired a bus for Rs 60,000 and sent it to Sitamarhi to bring around 30 labourers for the transplantation of our paddy. We have to bear these expenses as the team of these labourers has perfection in transplanting and this team has been doing the same for the past 15 years on our fields,” said Dalip Singh, a farmer of Pabana Hasanpur.

Farmers Shyam Singh and Dhoop Singh said the local labourers were taking advantage of the crisis and had formed a union. They had fixed exorbitant rates which will increase the input cost of paddy.

The authorities of the Agriculture Department say the direct seeding of rice (DSR) method has increased in the district due to lack of labourers. “Paddy is transplanted on 1.68 lakh hectares in the district. Of that, around 500 acres were cultivated with DSR method. This season, around 1,000 acres have been cultivated with this method,” said Aditya Dabas, Deputy Director Agriculture (DDA).