them had become paddy landowners. Over the past few decades the social and economic status of this segment of the rural population has considerably improved. At present a large number of persons from these families are permanent employees in other sectors capable of financially supporting their households. The successful adoption of family planning programmes and the resultant decline in the dependency load has enabled agricultural labour households to rely exclusively on the earnings of male members and their womenfolk refrain from farm labour works. Again after the construction of the Thanneermukkom Bund all of the padasekharams in this region are sown simultaneously and the seeds are also having almost the same duration. As a result of it farming operations like transplanting, weeding and harvesting in all of the fields are to be done at the same time and it puts more pressure on the locally available labourers aggravating the problem of labour shortage.
