The labour paradox
For those who think the rural employment guarantee scheme’s success in eastern states has shrunk labour supply to Punjab, leading to a steep hike in wages, here’s a reality check. The slowdown in migration has more to do with changes in the state’s agricu
TARN TARAN/MUKTSAR/RAJPURA: Comedian Bhotu Shah tries to touch a raw nerve when he sings, “Bade chetea aundene, jattaan nu bhaiyye.” Loosely translated, the line describes the plight of Punjab’s landed Jats, who fondly recall days of abundant migrant labour. Examine deeper, and the words tell the story of a patronising community now having to work hard to get labour that was at its beck and call. The story of the season, you’d think. Not really.
Well, times have indeed changed, and the once-meek ‘bhai-yyas’(punjabi slang for migrant labourers, primarily from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar) are participating in the politics of India’s economy with bargaining power that they never possessed earlier. But should this be attributed to the much-talkedabout shortage of migrant labour? Is there indeed a 25-30% shortage of farm labour?
DEMAND BY A LARGE NUMBER OF FARMERS IN A SMALLER TIMEFRAME IS WHAT THE MIGRANTS ARE
CASHING IN ON
EAR TO THE GROUND
Talk to the labourers and they would belie the data. What comes across as shortage –fuelling a rise in wages - is not an utter slowdown in migration; it has more to do with changes in Punjab’s agricultural practices.
“Earlier, we required labour all year round. Now it’s become specific to paddy transplanting, and that too for a small duration as now we cannot sow before the first week of June. Earlier, we started in mid-May,” says Ravi Inder Singh, a farmer whose family owns vast tracts at Jai Nagar village near Rajpura.
Stricter laws aimed at saving groundwater now stipulate dates to begin transplanting the water-intensive paddy crop. This year, it is June 10, leaving the farmer, who wants the yield by September, a window of 20-25 days to transplant paddy.
Demand by a large number of farmers in a smaller timeframe — in economics jargon, ‘concentration of increased demand’ — is what the migrants are cashing in on.
That is why Ravi Inder, despite having an annual tie-up with a group from Bihar, had to procure labour hurriedly when his trusted group got late. “I could not wait as the sowing has to be on time.”
Cotton-picking remains the other labour-intensive farm process now, even as harvesting of wheat and paddy become mechanised, with small farmers also pooling in money to hire ‘combines’.
This also means that there is nearextinction of the trend of migrants coming in for wheat harvesting and staying on for paddy transplanting that
started in mid-May earlier.
IN A HURRY, WAGES UP
Migrants working as seasonal farm labour now command up to triple the wages they got about five years ago. “We used to pay Rs 800 an acre for transplanting paddy around
2006-07. It went up due to infla- tion to Rs 1,100-1,300 in the next couple of years, and has now shot up to more than Rs 2,000,” says Mitha Singh, a former sarpanch of Sangu Dhaun village near Muktsar.
Five labourers take a day to transplant paddy on an acre, which means that per-person earnings have gone up from Rs 170-180 in 2008 to Rs 400 now.
On the outskirts of Tarn Taran, Sukhraj Singh, owner of 7 acres, complains of erratic power supply, and links that with the labour pangs: “The government gives power free of cost, but the supply is for a mere 3-4 hours a day. So, we have to sow paddy quickly.”
On the other hand, as he waits for rain to fill up the fields and saves diesel required to pump water from the ground, Ravi Inder is letting his labourers earn extra by working in nearby fields where farmers are using tubewells. “Ask for Rs 2,200 an acre, not Rs 2,500. You’ll get it!” he urges the group’s numberdaar (chief), Rama Shankar, from Bihar’s Sitamarhi district. Ravi Inder himself will pay them Rs 1,700-1,900 an acre, hopes the group, up from around Rs 1,100-1,300 a couple of years
Despite having an annual tie-up with a group from Bihar, I had to procure labour hurriedly when my trusted group got late. I just could not wait.
RAV I INDER SINGH
Rajpura landowner
ago. “We can command even Rs 2,500 from farmers with 3-4 acres. But we need some job security too,” says Shankar, who has been coming to Punjab since 1973.
FULL CIRCLE
On labour shortage, Shankar has a simple contention: “Earlier, we were totally dependent on big landlords. Now it’s become more business-like. It means that we get more wages for, say, a month or two. But the rest of the year, they do not need us as much. It evens out.”
About MNREGA, he says, “Of 100 men from our village, only five would choose to stay back because of MNREGA. The rest, like us, would now move onto Haryana, then go to plant paddy in Madhya Pradesh, and then sow paddy on the little land we take on lease back home.” Since Bihar’s season still remains largely rain-fed, it allows the labourers to work in Punjab before synchronising their own family agriculture with the monsoon, explains Bishamber from Purnia.
Postscript: To get a sense of how mechanisation has shrunk the overall need for labour, a 2011 study by Punjab Agricultural University could be of help. It says 48.66% of the total ‘family labour’ available for agriculture remains underutilised in Punjab.
The rate is high on big farms (50.7%), where tractors and combines have taken over. Migrant labour, anyway, now arrives only when needed, as the yearround work has decreased.