Dooars News>>Dooars garden opens after 32 months Sixth estate for new owners

(Top) Children offer flowers to the new owners of the garden on Wednesday; and the BDO of Falakata hands over the keys of the garden to the new owners. Pictures by Anirban Choudhury

Alipurduar July 13: Kadambini Tea Estate opened today after 32 months and the nearly 1,000 workers are relived that the new owner has not retrenched any of them.

According to garden sources, ration of 26 fortnights, wages of four months, Rs 1.7 crore as provident fund and Rs 47 lakh as gratuity are pending.

The management of the Himalayan Tea and Agro Private Limited, which bought the garden from Kadambini Tea Company Limited, has assured the workers that a month’s wage will be paid in a week and the rest of the dues will be cleared in the coming three years.

Of the 158 gardens in the Dooars, only the Dekhlapara tea estate is locked now. The Kadambini estate is the sixth to be owned in the Dooars by Himalayan Tea and Agro Private Limited.

The garden, 35km from Alipurduar, was shut down on November 14, 2008, following an altercation between workers and then management over dues. The workers had demanded their salary pending for eight months. A series of meetings followed the altercation, during which the management had demanded retrenchment but the unions did not agree.

“We had demanded that none of the workers be retrenched and all the dues cleared. This is one of the best agreements that we have got for our workers,” said Netai Pal, a Jalpaiguri district committee member of Citu.

During the period that the garden was shut, the workers were paid Rs 1,500 a month under a government scheme called FAWLOI (financial assistance for the workers of locked-out industry). An operations and management committee had been also formed to run the garden, sell the tealeaves and distribute the sales proceeds among the workers. The OMC paid Rs 80 to each worker on days — usually 15-17 days a month — the plucking took place.

“But we were not paid by the OMC during the lean season. Sometimes the government aid is not regular. In an open garden, workers get paid even during the lean season,” said a worker. The lean season is from December to February, when no plucking takes place.

Moreover, in a shut garden, the workers are deprived of ration, healthcare, electricity and water supply. Permanent workers are entitled to all these benefits besides a wage Rs 68 a day. Around 11.15am today when the new owners along with their family members arrived, they were welcomed with flowers children of the workers. They also performed to the beats of drums in front of the visitors.

Ramodar Barelia, one of the directors of Himalayan Tea and Agro Private Ltd, cut a red ribbon to enter the factory. Susanto Mandal, the block development officer of Falakata, handed over the keys of the garden to the director.

“It is your garden and without your active participation, this cannot be run. So this is your property, you have to take care of it. You have to work hard to make it one of the best gardens in this region. This garden has the potential to become one,” Ramodar Barelia told the waiting workers.

Narendra Barelia, another director, said: “Within one week we will pay one month’s wage to the workers. There will be no retrenchment. Gradually in three years, we will clear all the dues. The factory is in poor condition and it will take time to start manufacturing. We will go for new plantation. Soon we will try to restore electricity in the garden. From now on, workers will get the ration and wage on a regular basis.”

Dasai Munda, a worker of the garden, said he was happy that the garden has reopened. “It was such a difficult phase of our life. We had no electricity and no healthcare. Our children could not go to school. We had to buy all items, which are usually provided for free or at subsidised rates when the garden is open. We had been asking the administration to facilitate the opening of the garden.” 

 Pests hit tea production

- Loopers damage 154 dooars gardens:

An affected area of the Riabari tea estate where tealeaves under a shade tree have been eaten up by loopers. Picture by Biplab Basak

Jalpaiguri, July 13: Of the 158 gardens in the Dooars, 154 have come under attack of the looper caterpillar and planters fear that the pests would cause a loss of over 2 million kg of tea this season.

The Nagrakata station of the Assam-based Tea Research Association (TRA), however, is carrying out experiments with a new chemical to rid the gardens of the pests.

Additional secretary of the north Bengal chapter of the Tea Association of India (TAI) Subir Roy said 154 gardens have been attacked by the caterpillars.

“The annual production of tea in the Dooars is about 220 million kg and the looper attack will cause a fall by about 10 per cent. The gardens that are affected are in Banarhat, Nagrakata and Kalchini blocks,” he said.

At Riabari Tea Estate in Banarhat, the caterpillars have not only chewed up the tealeaves but they have also damaged the shade trees.

A looper on a tealeaf at Riabari garden. (Biplab Basak)

“Sometimes the looper attacks intensify so much that they spread over an area of four to five hectares and the pests chew up young tea leaves. We have no other way but to use very expensive pesticides to get rid of them,” said Achintya Kumar Sengupta, the manager of the garden, 65km from here.

The secretary of the TAI in north Bengal, Ranjit Kumar Dutta, said the caterpillars were coming from the forests that surround the gardens in the Dooars.

“These pests are coming from Diana, Reti, Pana and the Buxa forests,” he said.

According to the chief adviser to the TRA’s Nagrakata facility, Sunil Pathak, the loopers have a life cycle of 40 to 50 days.

“They consume tea leaves during their metamorphosis from caterpillars to cocoons. The extent of the attack seems to be compounded by the decrease in the number of birds and lizards in the areas, otherwise the loopers were controlled by these predators,” Pathak said.

He added that the TRA was experimenting with a new chemical that its scientists have developed.

“If the experiments and trials turn out to be a success, then it will be introduced in the tea gardens,” he said.

Pathak, however, did not mention the name of the chemical.

Jalpaiguri divisional forest officer Kalyan Das said the use of pesticides in the gardens might have reduced the number of lizards.

“The tea gardens use a lot of pesticides and that might be the reason of why the number of lizards and other creatures that eat caterpillars have come down. However, it is not true that that number of birds have decreased,” he said.

~TT