ECONOMIC TRENDS

WAGES

Farm-Servants.- "Farm-servants are usually hired for period of not less than a year, the agricultural year from June to May being the period fixed. Wages are either paid in cash or a combination of cash, food and perquisites. In the former case the yearly wage varies from Rs. 50 to Rs. 60, a specially good man sometimes get-ting as much as Rs. 65. Payments are sometimes made monthly, and sometimes half the annual wage is advanced at the beginning of the year, and the balance is paid at the close of the year. The combination wage is known as khaun piun pach pangrun ane thevila 'meal, think, five articles of dress and keep', Rs. 30 or Rs. 40 being paid in cash with the addition of a pair of dhotis, a pair of shoes, one blanket, one turban, and one scarf of the total value of about Rs. 7, and daily rations of juari and pulse estimated to cost about Rs. 2½ a month. The practice of paying servants entirely in cash is said to be gradually replacing the older custom of the combined wage. The wives of farm-servants do not necessarily work for their husbands' master. The custom of giving presents to servants at certain festivals does not prevail, but in the Malkapur taluk, and to a less extent in the Khamgaon and Jalgaon taluks during the sowing time, servants are fed by their employers in addition to their ordinary wages. Each village usually employs a grazier (guraki) for pasturing the village cattle, and he is paid at the rate of 2 annas for a cow and from 4 annas to 6 annas for a buffalo per month. The grazier is responsible for providing additional hands, if the held is too large for one man. The owners of large herds sometimes employ a private gra-zier, who is paid from Rs. 4 to Rs. 5 a month. Plough bullocks are not sent with the village cattle, but usually grazed by their owners on the fields and field boundaries. All grazing dues are paid by the owners. A separate servant is always employed for watching the crops, and his pay varies from Rs. 7 to Rs. 8 a month; small cultivators sometimes combine to keep one watchman for their fields. Farm-servants frequently change their employment, few remaining for more than three years in one place. In the last 40 years their wages are said to have doubled.

Agricultural Labourers.-Weeding is usually done by women, and they are paid at a rate of from 1½ to 2½ annas a day, or in grain at the prevailing rate according to their choice. When the rainfall is excessive and weeds are numerous, the general practice is to get the weeding done by contract. A party of men or women agree to clear an area of 5 acres for a sum fixed according to the work to be done. Under these contracts labourers can earn as much as 5 or 6 annas a day. Cotton-picking is also done by women, the Kunbis having a superstitious predilection in favour of this method. The cotton-pickings begin in November, and a good crop provides three pickings. Payment is made in kind, and the rate is from one-twentieth to one-tenth of the cotton collected. If the rate for the first picking is one-twentieth, that for the second would be one-tenth. The rate for the final picking is sometimes as much as one-half, as only a small quantity can be collected. As each woman finishes her task, she carries her load to the appointed place where the owner is in waiting, and each bundle is ranged with the picker seated near. The owner then divides the loads into the stipulated number of shares and tells the picker to choose one as her portion. This practice of payment, in kind has a tendency to lead to an increase in cotton thefts, and to avoid this, the cultivators of some villages of the Malkapur taluk have introduced the custom of purchasing the cotton that falls to the share of the picker at its market value, thus substituting payment in cash for payment in kind. There is very little wheat in the District except in the Mehkar and Chikhli taluks. A harvester gets from 15 to 20 per cent, of the sheaves, and if he cuts 40 sheaves daily, he earns between 2 and 3 seers of wheat of the value of 4 or 5 annas. The cutting is done by men and strong women. Fallen ears are pick-ed up by women and small children, who receive from one-third to one-half of the collections. The harvesting of gram is carried on in much the same way as that of wheat. In the case of juari the men cut the stalks (songni), and the women cut off and col-lect the heads (khudne). The women are invariably paid in kind, a basketful of heads equivalent to two or three seers being their portion; in the three plain taluks the men are paid in cash at the rate of 3 or 4 annas a day, but in the upland taluks of Mehkar and Chikhli they are paid in kind, a man's wage being almost three times that of a woman. It is calculated that on an average a quarter of the juari crop is paid in wages and harvesting.

Other Labourers.- The wages paid by the Public Works and Forest Departments can be ascertained with more accuracy than those paid by the general public. The wage of an ordinary male labourer for work such as metal-breaking, quarrying, digging earth, and the like, varies from 5 to 6 annas a day. Women earn from 2 to 2½ annas a day, and boys or girls 2 annas a day. Chaukidars or watchmen are employed at a monthly wage of Rs. 7. A native engine driver is paid Rs. 50 a month by the Public Works De-partment, and the same Department employs masons at 12 annas or 14 annas a day, carpenters at 14 annas or Re. 1 a day, black-smiths at 14 annas a day, tailors at 10 annas or 12 annas a day, thatchers at 10 annas a day, painters at 8 annas or 12 annas a day, and firemen at 12 annas a day. The Forest Department for grass-cutting and wood-cutting pays male labourers 3 annas, women 2 annas, and boys or girls 1 anna a day. The latter rates are somewhat higher in the Jalgaon taluk on account of the scar-city of labour; and there a male labourer can earn 4 annas and a woman 3 annas a day. Skilled workmen in the factories are paid as follows: Fitter Rs. 40 a month, blacksmiths from Rs. 25 to 30, carpenter Rs. 25, boilerman and engine-driver Rs. 15 to Rs. 20, oilmen Rs. 9 to Rs. 12, roller-cutters Rs. 8 to Rs. 11; chuprassies at factories get from Rs. 8 to Rs. 10 a month, and watchmen Rs. 8. The wages paid for unskilled labour in facto-ries are somewhat higher than elsewhere as the work is harder. Men are paid at rates varying from 5 annas to 8 annas a day, and there is said to be some difficulty in getting labour even at these rates. Women earn from 3 to 4 annas a day. The rates have risen within the last five years; the old rates were men 4 or 5 annas a day and women 2 annas a day ".[Central Provinces District Gazetteers, Buldhana District, 1910, Vol. A, pp.243-47.]

It can be observed that about three fourth of the labourers' class in the district used to seek their livelihood in agriculture and its allied activities. Even now in the later half of the twentieth century the circumstances are more or less the same for want of adequate employment opportunities in non-agricultural sector of the economy.

The 1961 Census enumerated 228,429 persons as agricultural labourers. Generally wages respond to changing trends in the price level. The rates of wages fluctuate alongwith the fluctua-tions in prices. Thus, at the time of First and Second World Wars alongwith the high trend of prices the wage rates also showed increasing trends, while the great depression in-between the two wars forced down both the wages and prices. In spite of this, the wages in general prior to 1910 compared with those prevailing now were very low. It may however be observed that wages do not move as fast as the changes taking place in prices and have a tendency to lag behind. This is mainly because the factors that cause changes in prices are unforeseen, sudden and unpredictable and cannot be compared with those that influence the labour and incidentally the wage market. However labour today is an organised force to be reckoned with and the activities of the labour organisations have forced up the level of wages in recent time more or less on par with the price level. The table on page 586 gives wage rates [Source:District Statistical Abstract, Bureau of Economics and Statistics, Government of Maharashtra.] in Buldhana district in 1965 and 1966.

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