Gaddi shepherds in dilemma as wool shearers go on strike

Lalit Mohan

Tribune News Service

Dharamsala, September 21

Hundreds of Gaddi shepherds are a harassed lot and stranded at various places in Kangra and Chamba districts as the wool shearers of Wool Federation of Himachal have struck work. The tribals are likely to incur losses in case their wool was not sheared before the onset of winter as the prices of wool would go down and many areas would be out of reach due to snow.

Akhsay Jasrotia, an activist from Baijnath area while talking to The Tribune, said that these days Gaddi tribals were climbing down from high mountain ranges. They are coming down to Kangra from Lahaul and Spiti, Kullu and Chamba district. Their crop of wool is ready. Almost all of them sell their wool produce to the Wool Federation of Himachal. However, this year they are struck as the wool federation was not sending its shearers to rear the wool crop of Gaddi tribals, he said.

As per the information gathered by The Tribune the Wool Federation of Himachal had 14 wool shavers who are trained for mechanical shaving. Last year these wool shearers had reared wool from one lakh sheep across the state. These wool shearers go to the places where Gaddi tribals gather with their mechanical equipment provided to them by the Wool Federation of Himachal. They rear wool from sheep and are paid as per the work done by them. The Wool Federation of Himachal had written to the state government to regularize the service of 14 wool sharers who had been working with the federation for the past more than one decade. However, the government gave Wool Federation permission to regularize just three wool shearers. This created resentment among other wool shearers who have refused to do work this year causing problems for Gaddi tribals.

Chairman of Wool Federation of Himachal Raghubir Singh, when contacted, said that the wool federation was empathic to the demand of wool shearers. “However, the federation does not have the resources to regularize the services of all 14 wool shearers. We had written to the government to hire on contract the remaining wool shearers. That request was also rejected by the government.

“We are again writing to the government to hire 11 sheep shearers on contract. Addition wool shearers should be trained as presently only 14 shearers trained in mechanical shearing are under burden to rear wool from one lakh sheep in the state” he said.

Malber, a wool shearer, said that they had to labour hard to go around the state to rear wool from sheep of gaddi shepherds. “We had been working for the past 10 years on the expectation that our services would be regularized. However, now the government was telling them only three can be regularised. It was injustice with us as many of us have gone overage for any other employment”, he said.