The state government has been levying fine, booking farmers and even ploughing the fields where the farmers have engaged in early transplanting. (Representational)
Busy planting paddy saplings with his workers at a filed in Dhannowali village Tuesday afternoon, Nirvail Singh, a labour contractor from Bihar, had no time to spare. He repeatedly told the laboureres, including few women, to finish work to move to Talhan village next for the same job.
Nirvail makes Rs 3000 for planting paddy saplings on a one acre filed and then pays the contracted labour. “What’s the big deal if we sow paddy a day before the official date,” he said, adding: “Landlords who engaged us had told us that they will start sowing from June 15, so we came from Bihar on June 13. Since then we were sitting idle…” He, however, refused to name the owner of the land.
Paddy sowing will officially begin in Punjab from June 20, and will continue for the next 20 days.
“I own five acre land and I engaged labour one day in advance, and sowing done on three acres. Remaining two acres will be done by tomorrow afternoon,” said a farmer in Talhan village.
The state government has been levying fine, booking farmers and even ploughing the fields where the farmers have engaged in early transplanting. But despite all this, a large number of fields had paddy being planted on the eve of the official date. There were similar scenes across dozen of villages in Jalandhar which The Indian Express visited on Tuesday, including Kapur, Kathar, Bolina, Hazara, Nasrala, Kala Sanghia, Jandiala, Lamra, Johlan, Jamsher, Manjki, and Jandhusingha.
“At several places we have just two to three Agricultural Development Officers (ADOs) against the requirement of 25 to 20 and in such conditions where can they all run,” said a senior Agriculture Department officer in Chandigarh. Rice is grown on nearly 29-30 lakh hectares area in Punjab.
Director, Punjab Agriculture Department, Dr Jasbir Singh Bains, said that farmers themselves should have stuck to government orders as it is in the larger interest of the state to save water as tubewells pump around 4.80 lakh million litre ground water in a single day during the cultivation season.
“We are also changing the mindset of farmers through Kisan Melas so that they can adopt environment-friendly habits,” he added. The government has announced that it will provide eight hours of uninterrupted power supply from Wednesday.
Meanwhile, farmers are facing labour shortage and have been rushing to railway stations to book workers the moment they land from Bihar and UP.