3 districts to get hand-held devices for cotton picking

Kulwinder Sandhu

Tribune News Service

Moga, December 31

The Agriculture Department has introduced battery-operated hand-held machines for cotton picking in Muktsar, Mansa and Bathinda districts. The machine is aimed at cutting down the labour cost and improving the quality of the produce.

Dr Kahan Singh Pannu, Secretary, Agriculture, told The Tribune the manual picking of raw cotton could soon become a thing of the past if farmers took to the newly developed hand-held machines.

“Experiments of cotton harvesting with machines conducted under the supervision of agro-scientists have been successful. The machines not only reduced the input cost, but also increased the speed of cotton picking. Besides, trash generated while harvesting cotton reduced. Because of the improved quality of cotton without any trash, the produce will fetch higher price,” he said.

Moga Plant Protection Officer Dr Jaswinder Singh Brar, who pioneered an experiment to bring cotton cultivation under drip irrigation, said the trash content with machines was less than one per cent against the normal average of three to five per cent with hand picking.

Dr Pannu said, “The machine costs Rs7,000. The department is contemplating introducing the machines in a big way from the next cotton harvesting season. The state government will consider providing subsidy on the machines.”