Assessment of Drudgery in Paddy Cultivation among Women Workers and Technological Gaps in the National Capital Region of Delhi Joshi Pratibha1, Sharma Nishi1,*, Kumar Adarsh1, Dabas J.P.S.1, Ahmad Nafees1, Sahu Subhashree1, Maurya P.P.1 1ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi-110012 *Corresponding author email id: nishisharm@gmail.com
Abstract Agriculture is prime source of livelihood for rural population in India. Being an unorganized sector, agriculture is one of the drudgery prone occupations due to lack of access to improved agricultural technologies. In this sector most of the on- the -farm and off-the- farm activities are carry out by women farm workers and are therefore subjected to very strenuous conditions of work that leads to both physical and psychological stress. The working conditions lack essential facilities; forces adoption of static and neo-neutral postures and unsupported positions, dependence on muscular force and strength that make the work very laborious and energy intensive. Women are subjected to such workloads every day, resulting in various physical disorders and health issues. Problems further aggravate as available farm equipment are designed keeping men workers in consideration. These equipment and technologies are not suitable for farm women as their body dimensions, strength and physiological characteristics are different from men workers. A study on Paddy Cultivation Practices was under taken in which physiological evaluation was done for different activities by women farm workers with three replications of fifteen minutes work cycle without rest pause. Ergonomic parameters namely Heart Rate, EER, TCCW, PCW, VO2 Max were measured during the experiments. Observations were recorded on farm women worker with normal health, without any major illness, regularly involved in farm operations and were in the age group of 25 to 45 years. For transplanting activity by traditional method, resting heart rate of 81.52 b/min increased up to 128.78 b/min with associated EER 11.75 (kJ/min), TCCW 728.68 beats and PCW as 48.53. The paddy harvesting and threshing activities were also evaluated. The values of TCCW were 682 and 829.4 and PCW were 45.46 and 55.29 respectively. Human Physical Drudgery Index (HPDI) was calculated for subjective assessment of postural discomfort. To reduce drudgery of women farmers’ suitable interventions were suggested to the farming community. Top Keywords Farm women workers, Ergonomics, Drudgery, Paddy cultivation practices and Human Physical Drudgery Index (HPDI). Top |