Fire devours hill tea factory - Rs 2 crore loss in blaze, FIR filed against estate management

Darjeeling, June 13: The factory of Nagri Farm Tea Estate was razed to the ground in a fire early this morning, causing a loss of more than Rs 2 crore at a time the garden was about to recover from years of financial constraints.

The fire department has lodged an FIR against the management of the garden and said most of the commercial institutions in the hills pay scant respect to fire safety norms.

“The blaze started at the factory around 12.15am and fire brigade reached the spot around 2.15am. Even though all documents were lost in the fire, preliminary estimates suggest we have incurred a loss of anything between Rs 2 and 2.5 crore,” said T.C. Sharma, the general manager of the garden, 40km from here.

The estate, spread over 570 hectares, has 813 workers and produces around 1 lakh kg of made tea annually.

Around 13,000 kg of made tea stored in the three-storied factory and the withering room were reduced to ashes in the fire.

The first and second floors of the factory were made of wood.

Garden sources said the documents could have given more accurate figures of the stock and the loss from the blaze. By the time a fire engine from Darjeeling reached the spot, the structure had almost become a heap of ashes.

Fire officers have started an inquiry into the incident. They, however, refused to say the cause of the blaze at the moment.

“We have just started the investigation and it will be difficult to pinpoint the cause of the fire immediately,” said D. Lepcha, the officer-in-charge of the Darjeeling fire station.

The garden was set up in 1883. “The factory which caught fire today had been rebuilt in1962 after it had been razed to the ground by a blaze,” said Sharma.

Ashok Lohia, the owner of the garden, said the fire had occurred when the company was about to be out of the woods after years of financial crisis.

“We took over the garden in 2001 and since then, our production has been less than 1 lakh kg of made annually. The decline in the production was because of bad weather and other natural vagaries. We were trying to break even this year and had started reviving the fortunes by undertaking uprooting (of old bushes) and replanting. But the fire has dealt a major blow to our efforts.”

In the FIR lodged with the Sukhiapokhri police station, the fire department accused the garden management of violating Sections 11 C and 12 of the West Bengal Fire Services Act 1950.

“Section 11 C states that a no-objection certificate has to be obtained from the fire station. The fire station will grant the certificate after it makes sure that safety procedures like a 2,000 litre overhead tank and a smoke and fire detection system are in place. Tea gardens also have to get their fire licences renewed under Section 12 every year as they store hazardous material like diesel and coal,” said a fire officer.

The fire brigade officials said most of the tea gardens or other commercial institutions like hotels and educational institution in the hills hardly follow these rules.

Sandeep Mukherjee, the secretary of the Darjeeling Tea Association, however, denied the allegations.

“Tea garden factories are set up only after obtaining the one time NOC from the fire department. It may be true to some extent that a few gardens might not have renewed their annual licences. But it is wrong to say all gardens have flouted the norms.”

Indranil Ghosh, an official of the Nagri Farm Tea Company, said the factory had adhered to all fire safety norms.

“We have got our factory inspected by a certified agency only in March this year and had also organised training on fire safety for our workers. All factory documents have been destroyed but we have duplicate copies in our headquarters to show that we have got necessary permissions.” 

TT