Labour shortage ails wheat procurement

Punjab needs to procure 13-14 mn tonnes in about four weeks

With the wheat procurement likely to commence from April 1 in Punjab, the arhtiyas (commission agents) are busy arranging the labour. The procurement of 13 million to 14 million tonnes wheat in a time span of about four weeks is a stupendous task (officially,the procurement continues till June but the maximum arrivals are registered in the month of April).

Thousands of labourers are required for loading unloading, cleaning, filling the gunniny bags and lifting the bags. The availability of labour in Punjab has been hit after the roll out of Mahtma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) as most of the labourers migrate from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

The arhtiya this year are more worried as the migrant labour may further get divided between Mahdya Pradesh and Punjab. The state of Madhya Pradesh has witnessed a quantum jump in the past few years and is expected to procure about 12 million tonne of wheat.

The President of Ludhiana Arhtiya Association, Raj Kumar Bhalla told that the Punjab government from this season has introduced a three stage contract for lifting, loading and unloading. He added that this was done to facilitate the smooth procurement.  "Under the new guidelines if a contractor does not lift the grain from the mandi yard for 72 hours, the arhtiya can transport the grain to the designated warehouse and he can charge the transportation and loading charges. This would help to keep the open space available for the fesh arrivals. At the same more persons are required as the three different contractors will hire different groups of labourers", he said. The arhtiya lose money if the grain stitched and stacked keeps lying in the yard as it loses the moisture content and leads to weight loss.

The sharp increase in procurement from 9 million tonnes to 14 million tonne in three years and decrease in vaialbility of labour due to opportunities avaialble in other states has put the arhtiyas in a jeopardy.

The Commission agents in Khanna Mandi, the largest mandi in Asia that procures close to 2 million tonnes of wheat in a season told that the daily wage of a labour should be minimum Rs 250 and it is fixed at Rs 154 a day by the Punjab Mandi board.