The Bee Season

• Migrant workers are being paid higher wages than ever
• Enticements include cellphones, good food and better housing
• Wives and children of migrant labourers are also being offered employment in factories
• The labour shortage has been caused by the migrants finding employment in factories in their home state and by the partial success of the NREGs scheme

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Deep in the innards of industrial Ludhiana is Bajwa Nagar, a conglomerate of 400-odd small textile industrial units. It's a bowl-shaped depression crisscrossed with scores of tiny lanes where thousands of migrant labourers from Bihar and UP earn a living doing anything from knitting to stitching, buttonholing, sorting, finishing and even ironing. But for the last one year or so, along with the piles of unstitched sweater sleeves, equally ubiquitous here now, have appeared signboards advertising vacancies for hosiery tailors or cutters. Every tiny lane, every other hole-in-the-wall unit has a cardboard sign out front saying 'Wanted'.

Ditto for Punjab's farmers who got a rude shock this year when roughly 40 per cent of the migrant labour workforce which usually comes at this time of the year to transplant paddy did not turn up. Result: rates for transplanting paddy doubled from Rs 700 per acre last year to Rs 1,200-1,400 this kharif. There was a mad scramble to complete transplanting in time. For the first time in years, many a Punjab farmer muddied his own hands in the fields.

The writing on the wall is clear. Punjab is no longer an attractive proposition for migrant labour from Bihar and UP, around 20 lakh of who are estimated to work in its farms and factories. With industrial activity picking up in Bihar, coupled with the partial success of the NREG scheme, most of these unskilled workers are earning at home almost as much as they would have in Punjab.

Dewanand Mandal, a contractor from Araria district in Bihar who has been supplying labour to farmers in Amritsar for over 15 years now, says, "Many of the people who I used to contract now prefer to go to the ports in Gujarat where they earn Rs 300 a day for loading/unloading work. Many have gone to the SEZs in Andhra Pradesh where they are earning much more. Some have got work in Bihar itself, in the many new factories."

Dewanand's contracted labourers almost did not make it to Jagdev Kalan village in Amritsar where they were supposed to reach this June. "As soon as we reached Amritsar station, a couple of policemen with lathis began forcing us to get into the tractor trolley of another farmer. We resisted and threatened to phone our old employer," Nathuram of Patna told Outlook. Such strong-arm tactics were visible all over Punjab this June when farmers tried every trick in the book to get what has become scarce labour for their fields. The border districts were particularly hit as many migrants, who come on the Amrapali Express and Jansewa Express trains reaching Amritsar, were offloaded at previous stations by desperate farmers offering them additional enticements. This was anything from additional wages, good food, free mattresses to even mobile phones.

But in all this, there have been a few good turns too. Dr P.S. Rangi, a consultant with the Punjab Farmers' Commission, says the shortage of migrant labour has allowed an "honourable return of Punjab's traditional rural labour workforce to the fields. The lower sections in Punjab villages had taken to working in urban areas because over the years they had been displaced by the migrants who charged much less." But with wages doubling this year, local rural labour made up for the shortage at many places.

Meanwhile, in the industrial hub of Ludhiana, which employs around 9 lakh migrant workers, there is a churning going on. Roughly half of the migrants have made Ludhiana their home, built small homes or bought land; some have even entered politics. But the other half comes and goes. K.K. Seth, spokesman of the 1,800-member-strong United Cycle Parts Manufacturers Association, points out: "Migrant labourers, who earlier used to go home only for weddings or harvesting, now do not come back. We have noticed a 30 per cent decline, which is forcing us to turn to other sources for labour." This has led to a situation in the last couple of years where even women and children among the migrants are being employed in industrial units in Ludhiana and Jalandhar. Factory owners are also increasingly hiring workers from either neighbouring Himachal Pradesh or Nepal.

Pedal power: A migrant worker family at a bicycle parts factory in Ludhiana

Divakar Kamal, who runs a small unit which paints and packs cycle parts, says he used to employ 40 people in the two units he owned. Now that's down "to just seven workers...and I have been forced to scale down 40 per cent of my operations." Migrant labour, available for Rs 850 a month for eight-hour shifts till last year, now costs Rs 1,350. He is also forced to make weekly payments, as against the earlier monthly payouts.

In fact, added incentives are the order of the day now. Vinod Thapar, president of the Ludhiana Knitwear Club, an association of knitting units, says he provides free lodging and boarding to 18 permanent Bihari employees at his factory and is making quarters to house another 72 workers in his new unit. "With increasing labour shortage, free lodging and electricity is a huge incentive for them to come. I also award prizes for best employee of the week," he says.

So, for once the humble 'Bhaiyya' feels wanted. Often derided by the Punjabi, the Bhojpuri-spouting migrant is finally having his time in the sun. Even for organised labour in the factories, the days of Rs 1,500 a month in wages are over. He gets, nay demands a minimum of Rs 2,500 from factory owners. And now his wife and kids have also found employment. Suddenly, it's all looking up.