Landlords cannot afford to say no to the labourers for the husk if they want to get their wheat harvested before it rains again. When The Indian Express team visited various fields here, labourers under the influence of the contraband were seen working tirelessly.

“Jaddon tak sardarji choora nahin wandange, is dhupp wich kamm kaun karega (Till the landlord does not distribute poppy husk, how can we work in the scorching heat),” said Gurmukh Singh, a farm labourer employed in a Sangrur field.

With the elections and harvesting season coinciding, there has been a shortage of poppy husk, said a landlord.

“Besides the polls, increased vigil by cops has jacked up the rate from Rs 900 to Rs 1,200 per kilogram,” said sources.

Not all landlords procure the drug for their labourers. In Jhalan, a remote village of Patiala, another labourer, said, “We just need money in our pocket and nod from our landowner to get the contraband.”

“Each farm labourer consumes poppy husk worth Rs 35 to Rs 70 daily,” he added.

“It works like an energiser, without which we feel tired and cannot toil,” said a group of Punjabi labourers working in Chuharhpur village on the Patiala-Sangrur highway. “Our youths in Punjab are already not willing to work in fields, and if this lone attraction is also snatched, they will not even look towards the farms,” added a labourer. Ranjit Kaur, working in a distant field, knows that her husband slogging in a nearby farm never misses his daily dose. “Last year, he had to be hospitalised when he could not get his dose for a few days,” she said.  

A senior police officer admitted that the supply of poppy husk in almost all villages of Punjab was high during the harvesting season. “The government needs to educate the youths about the harms of drugs,” he added.

Earlier last month, Punjab Deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal had also promised to curb this menace and the state government had formed a special anti-narcotics wing headed by an IG-level officer.

However, Patiala SP(D) Gurdeep Singh Pannu said, “It could be possible that the drug is available in villages in the harvesting season, but we keep conducting raids. I will ask my officers to be more vigilant.”

Fatehgarh Sahib SSP Kaustabh Sharma said that he was not aware that such big quantities of poppy husk were available in villages. “I will certainly look into the matter,” he added.