BENGALURU: With the coffee picking season in full swing in coffee country – Kodagu, Hassan, Shivamogga and Chikkamagaluru – a deadline in Assam has triggered an unexpected crisis for planters. Hundreds of migrant workers from Assam are heading back home, to ensure their names are on the voter list.
Assam’s ongoing Special Intensive Revision SIR of electoral rolls, a major verification drive by the Election Commission, has put thousands of names at risk of deletion if residents fail to appear or submit documents in time. For many seasonal labourers who have made Karnataka’s coffee estates in the Malnad areas their workplace for months or even years, missing the SIR process could mean losing their voting rights, and potentially much more, in their home state.
The result is a sudden labour crunch right when cherries are ripening and need to be picked quickly to avoid crop damage or quality loss. If left on the plants, the ripe cherries will drop to the ground and new coffee plants will sprout, causing more problems for growers. Planters were divided on dependency on migrant labour, revealing tensions over reliance on this sector.
MT Cariappa, a planter and advocate based in Srimangala, South Kodagu, says Kodagu’s growers are far from dependent on Assam-origin workers. “We are getting labour from Wayanad in Kerala and HD Kote region. They come in jeeps and their wages are reasonable,” he said. “Especially in South Coorg, we are not depending on them, but are getting labourers from Tamil Nadu also.”
He also questioned the skill level and role of many Assam migrants. “In Kodagu, about 50 per cent of Assam labourers are employed in the construction sector, not coffee estates. Assam’s workers are not skilled. They don’t know coffee estate work properly. We are not dependent on Assam workers. In many estates, local tribal communities have been working for decades, providing a stable core workforce,” he said.
The picture looks different elsewhere. Shirish Vijayendra, planter and former president of Karnataka Planters’ Association, said, “Assamese labourers leaving during the Robusta harvest is going to create a severe shortage of labour. Price of local labour will go up too, as estates will be vying for workers.” Their sudden departure has already driven up wage demands from remaining workers – both local and from other regions – leaving many planters stuck between paying more or risking over-ripe or fallen cherries.
With the SIR exercise in Assam sending ripples all the way to Karnataka’s coffee bowl, exposing how interconnected labour networks are, there is anxiety that a crop year will go waste. Planters are scrambling to source alternatives: expensive local labour, workers from Tamil Nadu, or simply hoping the remaining migrants return quickly once their SIR obligations are met.