Terai Dooars: Dooars garden up for sale

Siliguri, Jan. 3.TT: A liquidator appointed by the Calcutta High Court has put up a notice announcing the sale of Dheklapara tea estate and inviting bids from entrepreneurs interested in running the garden.

The notice was put up in December and the last date for the submission of bids is January 5. The management had abandoned the Dooars garden in 2002. Although the estate was reopened for about a year in 2005, it has been closed after that.

“The sale notice follows an order issued by the High Court on November 29. The (box containing) bids will be opened on January 6 to finalise the new owner of the garden,” an official of the state government said.

Around 600 permanent workers lost their jobs after the garden closed down because the management failed to pay pending liabilities to creditors and dues to the workers.

“The official liquidator of the High Court (K. Ananda Rao) has served the notice. The sale proceeds are likely to be used to clear the dues and the new entrepreneur is likely to get the estate clean of liabilities,” G. Boriah, the director (tea development) of the Tea Board of India, told The Telegraph over the phone from Calcutta.

“Once the bids are finalised, the other formalities are expected to take another couple of months or so,” he said.

Dheklapara garden, 120km from Siliguri, is located in the Birpara-Madarihat block of Jalpaiguri district.

“The garden had closed down on August 21, 2002. It had reopened in 2005 and functioned for about a year. We hope the notice brings a new owner for the garden and we get back our work,” said Lakshman Munda, a worker.

Mani Kumar Darnal, a leader of Intuc-affiliated National Union for Plantation Workers, said: “We would urge the High court, the state government and the tea board to consider workers’ interests and see that their dues are paid. Once the purchaser is finalised, the state must fix all the modalities to ensure that no problems emerge in future and the garden gets back to normalcy.”

He added that the Left Front government had issued an order in May 2009 mentioning some concessions while executing a fresh lease for the garden. “These might help in getting new entrepreneurs for Dheklapara,” Darnal said.