Jalpaiguri, Jan. 15.TT: The Tea Association of India has appealed to the state government to exclude garden workers from the rural job scheme during the plucking season.
The association that has 42 estates under its wing has said a good number of workers prefer to avail themselves of the scheme and it has an adverse impact on the production of tea.
The appeal was made by Hemant Bangur, the all-India president of the association, at the 41st annual general meeting of the body in Jalpaiguri’s Nagrakata yesterday.
R.K. Rungta, the chairperson of the association’s north Bengal chapter, also demanded that work under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme should not be implemented in gardens from April to November, considered to be the “peak season”.
“We are finding that about 30 to 35 per cent of workers stay away from either plucking or factories because of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, affecting the production of tea. If the scheme is still implemented, then the planters will have no other option but to start the mechanisation of the plucking process,” said Rungta.
Trade unions have termed the demand unjust.
“The daily wage of a worker is Rs 130 under the NREGS whereas he is paid only Rs 85 in gardens. An estate labourer would be paid Rs 2,210 if he works for 26 days a month. But an individual gets Rs 1,950 if he works under the NREGS for 15 days,” said Chitta Dey, the convener of the Co-ordination Committee of Tea Plantation Workers.
Dey said the only way out for the estate owners was to make the daily wage in gardens on a par with the pay under the NREGS.
“We have been demanding that the planters be given a daily wage that is higher than what is offered under the NREGS, say Rs 165, to solve the problem,” said Dey.
He said there were nearly 6.5 lakh workers in the 154 tea gardens in the Dooars.
The officer for the NREGS in the Jalpaiguri district, Samaresh Mondal, said providing work under the scheme to job card holders was mandatory. “Anyone with a job card will be provided with work under the central scheme. We cannot deny jobs to anyone under the law.”
Dheklapara
North Bengal development minister Gautam Deb will visit the closed Dheklapara tea estate tomorrow to see for himself the problems faced by workers there. He will be accompanied by minister of state for labour Sabina Yasmin.
“The labour minister and I will visit the garden tomorrow along with the labour secretary and take necessary steps for the relief of the workers,” said Deb
The workers in the garden at Madarihat have been reportedly suffering from malnutrition. The estate was shut down in 2005.
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