Labourers in the mandi working in close physical proximity. (Express Photo: Anju Agnihotri Chaba)

While Punjab government has ordered strict observance of social and physical distancing norms at grain markets during wheat procurement, labourers working at these mandis claim that it is difficult to follow the guidelines given the nature of their work.

A visit to the several grain markets across Jalandhar revealed that while the presence of the labourers was limited, but despite that social distancing was missing in practice.

In the district’s main gain market, around 150 labourers were seen working in different corners Wednesday. While the mandi wasn’t crowded, the labourers worked while standing close to each other. In fact, even mandi officials and arhtiyas were not seen trying to correct the labourers. Further, only a few workers had their faces covered with masks.

A few rested at different spots in the mandis, but again in a close groups. Those working at these mandis are involved in unloading of wheat, cleaning of the grain, followed by filling it in gunny bags, measuring it and then stitching up the bags before loading them on trucks bound for government storage facilities.

“Two persons are required when we have to fill the wheat in the gunny bags as one needs to open the mouth of the bag and other pours the grain in it. So how can we maintain even two-feet distance while handling one bag,” said labourer Ajit Ram in Jalandhar Grain market, adding that at the time of weighing also a 50 kg gunny bag is lifted by two to the weighing scale.”When we are loading the gunny bags in the trucks then also two people are required as both lift it and then one carry it on either on his head or back to place it in the truck,” said Narinder Kumar, a labourer, who was loading the bags on a truck.

“We can only cover our mouth,” said the contractor Nirmaljit Singh.

It was a similar scene at other mandis too. One arhtiya from Fazilka Mandi said that in their mandi hundreds of labourers were working and distancing was just not practically possible.”I have provided my labour three masks each, soap, hand sanitisers etc. and I keep telling them to keep sanitising and washing their hands after every half an hour,” said Manoj Gupta, an arhtiya at Fazilka Mandi.

A Punjab Mandi Board official said that they were making the labourers aware about their safety time and again, but they were ignoring basic instructions. “Even if two people are required for a work, they can put masks on their faces all the time and avoid touching their face, nose, ears, and eyes and keep washing their hands frequently,” he said.