Occupational stress of women worker in man nual rice transplanting operations

Transplanting of rice is very teedious job mostly done by female workers du uring Kharif season. It is presumed that during 20020 there would be 50 per cent women aga ainst 42 per cent at present. According to Srivas stava (1985) women irrespective of land st tatus of the family provides 14 to 18 hours of pro oductive physical labor in different chores. T The energy spent by them in performing these ta asks is more than it is physically feasible for them to spend particularly in a below subsisttence level of living. Manual hand transplantting consumes a lot of energy and time and full of f fatigue, but the poor socio-economic condit tion does not allow them to adopt power operateed transplanter. Transplanting operation by y different research centers have been developed as 2 row, 3 row paddy transplanter. Still m majority of the area covered under transplanting is s mostly done by manual method i.e. adoptin ng bending posture. Keeping this in view tweleve e female subjects were selected in the age g group 18-45years to study its efficiency. The mean n value of age, weight, height, VO2 max and d Body surface area were found to be 31.1 year rs, 51.7 Kg, 153 cm, 1.71 l/min and 1.52 m². Physiological parameters like Heart rate, O Oxygen consumption rate and Relative cost of workload were measured in different transpl lanting operations. The mean value of work king heart rate was observed to be maximum 13 35.4 beats/minin 4 row paddy transplanter followed by 127.6 beats/min in 3 row transpla anter and 126.5 beats/min in 2 row trans splanter and 114.5 beats/min in local transplantin ng. The Oxygen consumption rate and Relativ ve cost of workload were observed to and 53.0 ppercent in 3 row transplanter followed by 0 0.91 l/min and 50.3 percent in 2 row transplanter a and lowest in local practices, i.e. 0. 58 l/min a and 32 percent. The field capacity was observed to o be maximum 0.012 in 3 row transplanting ffollowed by 0.008, 0.007 ha/h in 3 row, 2 row and local method of transplanting. Considering the physiological parameters of women worker the three row Rice transplanter recorded lower cardiac cost and higher efficiency.