Interventions in reducing drudgery of workers in traditional way of harvesting of Makhana seeds from ponds

Abstract

Makhana (Euryale ferox salisb.) is a seed produced from an aquatic crop, which normally grows in water bodies like ponds. In the traditional way of harvesting, a worker goes deep into the pond, lies down, holds his breath and drags the mud with both hands towards a bamboo pole called ‘kaara’, which is later sieved using a bamboo screen called ‘ganjaa’. During this operation mud enters into the ears, eyes, nose and mouth of the worker. Also, the workers are affected by skin related diseases due to unhygienic working environment. Therefore, an intervention was made and an improved system was developed which consists of a floating platform providing support to a 10 l cylinder having compressed air, 10 m hose pipe with regulator and a mini diving kit having suit with cap, mask and content guage. A comparative study was conducted using both traditional system (T1) as well as improved system (T2) of harvesting Makhana seeds from ponds. The results indicate that the average output is only 3.8 kg/h with T1 system, whereas it is 11.3 kg/h with T2 system. The overall discomfort rate is 8.3 in case of T1 system, whereas it is 4.2 in case of T2 system. Also, the body parts discomfort score is higher (78.8) with T1 system compared to T2 system (48.2). The harvesting of Makhana seeds using the improved system involves less drudgery in comparison to traditional system with significantly higher work output.