Rice Millers in dilemma so as Bihari workforce

Warangal: Never before has the farming sector been in chaos as such the situation in the State. Even as the uncertainty over the procurement of paddy continues with the Centre and the State throwing the ball in the other's court to escape from the responsibility, the rice millers including the parboiled operators in the erstwhile Warangal district were also facing the heat of the situation due to the non-arrival of migrant workers from Bihar. It may be mentioned here that by and large all the rice mills in the region are heavily dependent on Bihari migrant workforce for milling operations, loading and unloading. After procuring the paddy, the district administrations send the stocks to the millers for custom milling.

The erstwhile district has more than 300 rice mills including 120 parboiled rice mills. Each of these mills engages nearly 40 workers per season. At this rate, the rice millers need a whopping 12,000 workers. But so far reports suggest that around 2,000 migrant workers had reached Warangal thus leaving a huge gap between the requirement and workforce. It may be recalled here that the Covid-19 lockdown in March 2020 made life miserable for these migrant workers. It not only created panic among them but also forced them to return to their native places in Bihar.

According to a study conducted by the University of Hyderabad (UoH), majority of migrant workers were down with the Covid-19 pandemic. This is one of the reasons that held back the labourers in their native places.

With the procurement is yet to pick up and untimely rains meddling with the process, the rice millers are in dilemma over engaging the labourers from Bihar. A Bihari worker said that talks are in progress between the millers and the labourers. But the labourers are sceptical about arriving in Telangana due to uncertainty prevailing in the region. The millers are also in two minds whether to engage the workforce or not due to the inordinate delay in the procurement, he added. On the other hand, a few batches of Bihari labourers who already reached Telangana districts are finding it difficult to get work with the procurement going at a snail's pace. On an average, each labourer earns more than Rs 1,000 a day.