In a bid to curb the rising farm labour shortage, the Confederation of Indian Industry has called for integration of farming with the rural job scheme – Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA).

“Farm labour should be included in MNREGA and the Government should subsidise mechanisation of sugarcane farming,” said Ms Rajshree Pathy, Vice-Chairperson, CII National Committee on Sugar. Ms Pathy was delivering the keynote address at the CII National Seminar on Sugar Machinery Industry.

Stating that labour shortage was becoming acute, Ms Pathy said the industry was willing to pay farm workers in addition to the MNREGA wages.

In an interview to Business Line in May this year, Dr Ashok Gulati, Chairman of Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices had stated that there was a need to extend MNREGA to work on private farms.

Unable to deal with the labour shortage and rising wages, sugarcane farmers are switching to crops such as coconut, Ms Pathy said. She reiterated the demand for de-control of the sugar sector.

Farm labour shortage is more pronounced in southern States such as Tamil Nadu that are more industrialised. Farm wages in key sugarcane growing States have seen an increase from about 15 per cent in Uttar Pradesh to as high as 43.35 per cent in Punjab in the past year. Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have seen a farm wage increase of 36, 35 and 22 per cent respectively in the past year.

Mr Arvind Mehta, Joint Secretary, Commerce Ministry, said the Government could look at bringing in a export tariff on sugar as in the case of iron ore exports rather than restricting them completely. He asked the sugar machinery industry to tap the growing markets in Africa and Latin America.

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