Coronavirus lockdown: SC asks Centre to consider plea by IIM prof on allowing use of labour for rabi harvest

The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Centre to consider a plea by Prof Trilochan Sastry, a faculty member at IIM Bangalore, for immediate movement of requisite labourers across districts and states for the harvest of rabi crops and sowing of Kharif crops, adversely affected due to countrywide lockdown on Covid-19 pandemic.

A bench of Justices N V Ramana, Sanjay Kishan Kaul and B R Gavai told Solicitor General Tushar Mehta to treat the PIL by Sastry as the representation for "issuing relevant guidelines".

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The court said that it was aware of the various problems being faced by farmers and the agricultural sector. It stressed on the necessity to find solutions to these problems in these difficult circumstances.

The bench further observed that it had seen reports stating that certain measures were already being taken by the states in order to tackle the problem of labour shortfall.

The petitioner, a founder-secretary of the Centre for Collective Development (‘CCD’), a not-for-profit organisation working with small and marginal farmers, was led by senior advocate Nikhil Nayyar during the hearing.

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Nayyar argued that a total of 662.13 lakh hectares was reported as sown with various rabi crops in 2019-20 which was to be harvested in April-May 2020. But migrant labour from cities, which typically worked as farm labourers in rural India during the rabi harvesting season, have not been allowed to get to their destinations, thereby creating a gruelling shortage of labour, he said.

He also said many leading companies in the organised foods industry have been noting disruptions in their supply and distribution chains, and that their factories are working with severely reduced manpower. However, due to such shortage of labour, the entire purpose behind granting exemption of farming-related activities during the lockdown period failed as essential economic activities were being unable to reach normalcy.

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The Solicitor General, for his part, said that the Union government was also cognisant of the difficulties faced by the agricultural sector and they are taking constant measures to ease the situation, including further guidelines.

Sastry sought a direction to the Centre to all necessary steps to prevent any further food grain, vegetable, or fruit loss. He also asked the court to issue specific and detailed directions for transmission and dissemination this information amongst law enforcement agencies and the general public involved in farming and food production, distribution and transport activities, keeping in mind the safety and security of the moving populace.

Sastry also contended that the State must identify all logistical bottlenecks in the food supply chains of the country, including anticipated logistical bottlenecks for the harvest of the rabi crops (2019-20 season) and sowing of the Kharif crops (2020 season), and address them immediately and in a time-bound fashion.