The workers from West Bengal get start their work at 6 a.m. and are on the field till 6 p.m. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
A group of 13 men from Dakshin Datta Para village in Nadia district, West Bengal, busy transplanting paddy has been catching the eye of many in Mayildathurai district in recent days. A video clip of the Bengali migrant agricultural workers Singing Hindi and Bengali songs while planting paddy at Nallathukudi village here has gone viral.
Skilled in paddy transplantation, the group has been travelling across the country, including Tamil Nadu. The workers proclaimed themselves to be of proud farmer lineage in West Bengal and say their services has been in high demand across the nation.
Local people watch them work with awe as paddy transplanting, a work largely done by women in Tamil Nadu is done by this group which has only men.
Forty-year-old Deva Mondal, who heads this group, can speak fluent Tamil as he has been involved in various agricultural works in different parts of Tamil Nadu for the past 20 years. “Tamil Nadu is very warm towards us. We do have our own land in our village back in our State. We cultivate paddy from December to January there after which we travel to other places for work,” said Mr. Deva.
Pointing to their nature of work as a highly laborious one, Mr. Deva said: “If we get down in the field at 6 a.m., we work up to 6 p.m. For one acre, we are paid ₹4,500 to ₹5,000 and we plant at least 4 to 5 acres a day,” he said.
Mr. Deva is aware that local workers here are paid at least ₹600 a day for the same work, not on acre basis like them but on individual labour basis. “Though, we are not paid on an individual basis, we work a lot and make sure to earn better by covering more area in a day.”
“For the past three years, we have been working in various parts of Tiruchi, Pudukkottai, and other districts. In Mayiladuthurai, this is our first time and we are sure that they will call us the next year seeing the harvest. Apart from Tamil Nadu, we go to Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, and outside India, to Nepal. Everywhere, they call us repeatedly seeing our work,” said Nilrathone Mondal, 57, and Animesh Sarkar, 27, from the same group.
Aravind Sircar, 67, said: “For five acres of paddy planting, if they hire locals it would take at least 50 persons and more days but we 13 alone complete all the work.”
Asserting that they are not taking away the jobs of locals and citing a supposed demand of a agricultural labourers here, Mr. Aravind said they are fulfilling existing labour shortage here. ”In the places we go, farmers who hire us tell us that they could not get enough labourers to get work done.”
Impressed by govt. schemes
Admiring the existing schemes by Tamil Nadu government to farmers here, Mr. Deva said: “ If only we have free electricity for farmers like here in our State, our livelihood would change like anything and there won’t be a need for us to go elsewhere.”
Mr. Deva also said the group plans to widen this work by making it more professional and business oriented.
Local farmers, who hired the workers and did not want to be named, said: “There is local resentment in our village as we have hired them. This is the first time we are hiring other State workers in our village based on a suggestion from a farmer friend in Viralimalai who has been hiring them for the past two years. We don’t have young people here as agricultural labourers and we could not pull in the needed amount of labourers at the required time. So is the need for hiring them and these workers ease our work by being quick and efficient.”
Published - June 08, 2024 11:06 pm IST
