Owners of paddy harvesters from Tamil Nadu are a happy lot. They migrate temporarily to rice-rich Andhra Pradesh during the harvest season to rake in the moolah.
“We come here to make decent earnings considering the operational cost and debt servicing after purchasing the machine at a cost of about Rs. 9 lakh each,” say a group of farmers from the neighbouring State during a brief halt here before proceeding for harvesting in the paddy-growing areas.
When the Southwest monsoon plays truant, ryots in the delta region in the neighbouring State altogether miss the ‘kuruvai crop' and take up the ‘samba’ crop belatedly, explains a paddy harvester owner Suresh in a conversation with The Hindu .
“We charge Rs. 1,000 per hour for harvesting and threshing and this includes fuel and labour costs,” says Balaji, another paddy harvester from TN. They work for 10 to 15 hours each day in the rice-rich areas, including the districts of Prakasam, Guntur, Krishna, Nellore, East Godavari and West Godavari, for about a month.
The ryots here, faced with shortage of labour due to payment of high wages under MGNREGA Scheme, saw these machines as a boon. “The only disadvantage is that we will not get fodder for cattle when we opt for machine cutting,” says Mannam Venkateswarlu, a paddy grower from Karamchedu.
