Vani Shree

Suffering in silence: Migrant cane cutters of Maharashtra

Overworked, poorly paid and deprived of any rights, migrant cane cutters, especially women are most vulnerable and continue to suffer from a number of health and security risks.

Pooja Adhikari

Posted on 27 Feb, 2020 10:04 PM

Maharashtra is the second largest sugar producing state in India, after Uttar Pradesh where as high as 1.6 million farmers cultivate sugarcane on 0.7 million hectares of land. The sugarcane industry provides direct employment to about 0.16 million workers while 1.5 million workers engage in sugarcane harvesting and transport operations every year.

Women workers suffer the most (Image Source: Azhar Feder, Wikimedia Commons-CC-BY-SA-3.0)

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