Improving conditions in Bihar could hold sway over large swathes of fields in Punjab where farmers depend heavily on migrant labourers for sowing paddy.

“A number of my cousins and relatives are happy back home, benefiting from numerous poverty schemes of the Government. They are working there at good daily wages,” says Chotte Lal, a migrant from Purnia. “I came to Punjab as my wife was here along with my brother and his family in Ludhiana. Otherwise, I would have not come as the situation is far better in Bihar than it was a few years ago.”

That has made the Punjab farmers panicky, who are flocking to railway stations, hoping to catch the migrant labourers from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh — their mainstay for sowing nearly 28 lakh hectares of land in the state which has a shortage of labour — as soon as they disembark.

At Rajpura, anxious farmers wait for the arrival of Jansewa Express in sweltering heat, ready to shell out whatever is demanded. “My son does not want to work in the fields with me, as he has applied for immigration,” says Satnam Singh from Jahlan village, who has been waiting for the past two days to find experienced labour. “I have no option but to depend on migrant labour, which demand almost Rs 3,500 per hectare in addition to food, liquor and other expenses.”

According to experts in the Agriculture Department, Punjab needs on average seven lakh labourers to work in the fields in addition to doing other jobs. Chief agriculture officer B S Sohal claims the shortage of migrants will increase every year, given improving work conditions back in their state.

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