Kerala - Alappuzha   

Authorities’ call to farm labourers for crop harvesting

ALAPPUZHA: The district administration, along with various labour unions, has decided to pull together labourers from different parts of the district to harvest the ‘puncha’ crop from the remaining paddy fields in Kuttanad from Tuesday.

The decision to marshal available labourers and to use harvest machines wherever geographical circumstances permitted was taken after a meeting conducted with labour unions here on Saturday by District Collector V.K. Balakrishnan.

The labourers, who will be paid travel expenses and extra wages apart from the conventional share of paddy they get, will also be extended medical care free of cost if the need arose. The decision was taken keeping in view the hostile geographical conditions, which rendered a major expanse of paddy fields here adverse to the use of combine harvester machines.

Meanwhile, the loss as a result of the untimely summer rains in Kuttanad alone has been pegged officially at Rs.39.21 crore.

The figure was put together after 25 squads comprising officials from the Agriculture and Revenue departments assessed the damage in over 300 ‘padasekharams,’ including those in the ‘kayal’ fields adjacent to the Vembanad Lake and where threats of bund breaches still existed.

The damage, with the rains persisting on Saturday too, is likely to go up.

The loss statistics will be updated as and when more damage was reported, officials said.

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