Nagpur: If the Lakdi Bahin payout may have led to a shortage of farmhands in villages, the district administration in Yavatmal is worried about the flight of the landless and marginal farmers in search of work during election time.
Each year, a large number of locals in the villages of Yavatmal’s Pusad and Umarkhed tehsils go to Western Maharashtra and even as far as Karnataka to work in the sugar cane fields. They are employed for harvesting the sugar cane crop. A back breaking work gets around Rs80,000 to Rs1 lakh for the job, which lasts for 4 to 5 months.
As their absence may hamper the expected voter turnout during the assembly elections, the govt is persuading them to stay back until at least the polling day. The migration had impacted the voter turnout during the Lok Sabha elections. The district administration does not want a repeat in the assembly elections, said sources.
Meetings were held with the villagers and also the labour contractors who take them to sugar cane areas in West Maharashtra and Karnataka. They are being convinced to stay until the elections and are also being offered work for the time being under the govt’s employment guarantee scheme, said an official involved in the drive.
Also, a govt circular has asked the sugar mills in Maharashtra not to start the season’s operations before November 15. In case of violation, the director or other top management officials would face action, it says.
Each year the state govt fixes the date for sugar factories to start crushing. It depends on factors like availability of water, maturation of the sugar cane crop apart from other criterion.
Sources say it takes around a week for the operations to fully start. If the November 15 deadline is adhered to, the actual crushing may start after November 20 — the polling day. In that case, even the migrant workers would not be needed until then, said an official. Normally, the migrant workers leave after the Dussera festival.
Elections are not a criteria for fixing the date to commence operations but this would indirectly help in delaying the migration, said a source.
Lakdi Bahin or not, working in the sugar cane fields remains a compulsion for them, say the locals. “A number of them belong to the Banjara community and are dry land farmers,” says Manish Jadhav, a farmer and activist from Yavatmal, adding, “They are engaged by the sugar cane transporters who, in turn, are paid by the factories. Even the farmers whose fields they harvest pay. The entire package comes to Rs1 lakh or more.”
Santosh Rathore, a regular migrant, says the job is paying but also back-breaking. “Our families stay in the open fields. There is no medical facility, and even children’s education is hampered and the elderly have to be left behind. The soyabean grown on my three-acre farm hardly fetched Rs3,200 a quintal. I have no choice but to go like many others. This time the contractor hasn’t approached us, and we have been asked to wait until the elections,” he says.
Each year, a large number of locals in the villages of Yavatmal’s Pusad and Umarkhed tehsils go to Western Maharashtra and even as far as Karnataka to work in the sugar cane fields. They are employed for harvesting the sugar cane crop. A back breaking work gets around Rs80,000 to Rs1 lakh for the job, which lasts for 4 to 5 months.
As their absence may hamper the expected voter turnout during the assembly elections, the govt is persuading them to stay back until at least the polling day. The migration had impacted the voter turnout during the Lok Sabha elections. The district administration does not want a repeat in the assembly elections, said sources.
Meetings were held with the villagers and also the labour contractors who take them to sugar cane areas in West Maharashtra and Karnataka. They are being convinced to stay until the elections and are also being offered work for the time being under the govt’s employment guarantee scheme, said an official involved in the drive.
Also, a govt circular has asked the sugar mills in Maharashtra not to start the season’s operations before November 15. In case of violation, the director or other top management officials would face action, it says.
Each year the state govt fixes the date for sugar factories to start crushing. It depends on factors like availability of water, maturation of the sugar cane crop apart from other criterion.
Sources say it takes around a week for the operations to fully start. If the November 15 deadline is adhered to, the actual crushing may start after November 20 — the polling day. In that case, even the migrant workers would not be needed until then, said an official. Normally, the migrant workers leave after the Dussera festival.
Elections are not a criteria for fixing the date to commence operations but this would indirectly help in delaying the migration, said a source.
Lakdi Bahin or not, working in the sugar cane fields remains a compulsion for them, say the locals. “A number of them belong to the Banjara community and are dry land farmers,” says Manish Jadhav, a farmer and activist from Yavatmal, adding, “They are engaged by the sugar cane transporters who, in turn, are paid by the factories. Even the farmers whose fields they harvest pay. The entire package comes to Rs1 lakh or more.”
Santosh Rathore, a regular migrant, says the job is paying but also back-breaking. “Our families stay in the open fields. There is no medical facility, and even children’s education is hampered and the elderly have to be left behind. The soyabean grown on my three-acre farm hardly fetched Rs3,200 a quintal. I have no choice but to go like many others. This time the contractor hasn’t approached us, and we have been asked to wait until the elections,” he says.
