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From bad to worse in Punjab

Photo: PTI

Hard times: Farmers waiting to sell their wheat at a grain market in Amritsar.

CHANDIGARH: The people of Punjab, once known for their prosperity and opulence, find themselves forced now to change their lifestyles in the wake of soaring prices of essential commodities, education and health care. These forced adjustments are all the more stark and glaring out in the countryside.

The markets across the State are abuzz with activity, but there are not many customers. About the only persons who appear to be flush with money are erstwhile farmers who have received compensation for land holdings acquired by the Government for setting up some mega project or the other.

According to a seasoned political activist, Jaspal Singh of Mansa district, the spiralling prices have had the most adverse effect on the poorest of the poor in the remote areas of the State. Soaring inflation has already negated the benefits which the small or marginal farmers could have expected from the recent increase in the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for wheat and other rabi crops.

Jaspal Singh says the contention that agriculture in a holding of less than five acres is unviable was never so clear for the common villager as today. The lifestyle of the common man in the countryside is changing because of new food habits.

More villages have approached the authorities expressing inability to run the works that supply potable water in the cancer-infested region of the State as people just cannot pay, he adds, pointing out that the situation is grim as medical treatment is going beyond the reach of many.

For Ranbir Singh, who manages a flourishing family business in Amritsar city, it is time to tighten the purse strings through some self-discipline, especially reducing expenses on eating out. For Baljit Kaur, a farmer’s wife in Bathinda district, it is agonising to realise that instead of “desi ghee’ that sells for just short of Rs.200 a kg, she must cook nowadays in mustard oil, a medium which did not match her family status until recently.

While Ranbir’s family is forced to eat at home, Baljit has abandoned pulses from the hearth, while at least one meal for her family is just chapattis served with onion-green-chillies-chutney. She sheds a silent tear as the men folk do not protest and children go to bed without their glass of milk.

Teja Singh, who owns a 25-acre farm, argues that the plight of the medium farmer is no better as this section of Punjab’s robust agricultural community also finds its purchasing capacity diminishing. He recalls that a couple of decades ago his family could purchase a tractor by selling away 195 quintals of wheat; today they require 445 quintals and a colossal debt to raise the crop. Earlier a quintal of wheat could buy him 1,688 bricks to build a house; now the same quantity fetches just 318 bricks.

Like Teja Singh, many other farmers accept that the recent increase in the MSP for wheat had brought a ray of hope that they would be able to repay some of their debts. But the increase in prices of farm inputs, labour costs and other commodities has already levelled the increase. Diesel costs much more, the “theka” (contract) bill for an acre of cotton has risen to Rs.5,000, the daily wage of the labourer has gone up to at least Rs.125.

Mohinderpal Singh, who was involved in the government’s wheat procurement operations, says there was an acute shortage of labour this season. Migrant labourers found it difficult to make an earning at the prevailing prices and preferred to stay at home. The farmers had to pay double the costs of cleaning and packing the grains, he adds, pointing to reduced margins.

But Sikandar Singh Dhaliwal of Manbidyan village presents an interesting facet of the prevailing scenario. While he is involved in a social movement that provides assistance to students from the weaker sections of society who are unable to buy stationary or help books, his own teenaged son has had to discontinue his 10+2 studies in Chandigarh as the family could not meet the expenses.

During the recent harvest season, children from the economically weaker sections, Scheduled Castes and labour class were pulled out of school to work with the farmers or go forage the fields for the leftover stalks of wheat or grains scattered during harvest.

A government teacher himself, Sikandar Singh Dhaliwal along with his associates engaged himself in the task of preventing dropouts, but had to bring his son back and resume studies nearer home as affording “quality education” was no longer within his reach.

“We have delayed the purchase of a computer and dissuaded him from buying branded clothes or other items,” he discloses.

Bibi Inderjeet Kaur, who heads the philanthropist Pingalwara Trust that looks after a few hundred orphans, diseased, aged and destitute persons, fears that in case the price rise is not arrested immediately it would force people to take to crime. She fears that organisations like the Pingalwara might also be affected as their main support base, the middle class, would find it increasingly difficult to make donations.

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