Wheat in Punjab harvesting yet to pick up pace

Neel Kamal | TNN | Updated: Apr 15, 2020, 08:15 IST

Wheat procurement begins April 15

BATHINDA: Harvesting of wheat has not started at full swing in Punjab, even a day before official start of procurement, which is delayed by 15 days as compared to previous years to stop amid the spread of coronavirus. As the harvesting is undertaken through combine harvesters, it has started on a low key at some places. In most of the areas, the combine harvester operators have not taken the machines in the fields and are waiting for April 15, the day fixed for starting the operations.
In the past few days, police stopped combine operators from undertaking operations in many districts. Fearing reprisal, operators are playing safe by waiting for the official start date. Harvesting is expected to pick up pace soon. According to official records, there are nearly 17,500 combine harvesters in Punjab. Of these, over 2,000 undertake harvesting operations in other states and many are still on their way back. Manual harvesting has started in very small stretches.

"We were asked by government officials not to start harvesting operations before April 15, so we preferred to remain off the fields even though many farmers repeatedly asked us to start harvesting and even assured complete protection. We will start from Wednesday and we have machines ready for that," said Dilbagh Singh, a combine operator from Mansa.
Mohinder Singh, a combine operator from Muktsar also said a number of farmers have approached them but they will conduct harvesting only from Wednesday.
Meanwhile, a few combine operators circulated a video from Burdwan district in West Bengal asking authorities to facilitate their return to Punjab for harvesting. Talking to TOI over the phone from Burdwan, combine driver Sukhdev Singh said, "There are over 100 persons, including our group of 10 who are stuck in West Bengal. We were waiting for April 14 to return but as the lockdown has been extended, we have no means to return".
Back home, commission agents are finding it difficult to arrange trained labourers for procurement operations, including cleaning, stitching of sacks and loading of grain. These operations are traditionally handled by migrant labourers, most of whom have gone back to their native places. Under such circumstances, arhtiyas will have to depend on local labourers or people working under MGNREGA, a commission agent from Bathinda said.
Federation of Arhtiya Association president Vijay Kalra said arhtiyas have been asked to arrange labourers to undertake procurement operations. The have been asked to arrange labourers from wherever they can and even approach 14 lakh MNREGA workers in Punjab. Under MGNREGA, they work for eight hours to earn Rs 263 per day but in mandi operations, labourers have to work much longer.