harvest season was supplemented by outside labourers. Hundreds of outside labourers used to come to the padasekharams as harvesters and stayed in temporary sheds until the entire harvesting operations are over. In course of time as harvesting became less attractive the inflow of such labourers gradually declined and at present all of the paddy farmers are depending on locally available labourers for all farming activities. Even though the problem of labour shortage becomes more severe during the harvest season many local farmers complained that they could not complete other activities like transplanting and weeding in the right time due to the paucity of farm labourers. The worsening situation of labour shortages can be attributes to so many inter related factors such as the growing employment opportunities for the rural workforce in other sectors, successful implementation of poverty alleviation and self
