The Hindu Business Line : Bengal takes steps to raise tea workers' lot

THE Supreme Court has ordered the West Bengal Government to take corrective measures immediately after hearing a petition filed by a NGO detailing starvation deaths in the tea industry.

The West Bengal Network Right to Food and Work, a NGO, filed the petition based on a study conducted by it after visiting the closed tea gardens of Dooars and Darjeeling.

After hearing the matter on January 16, Mr Justice Y.K. Sabharwal and Mr Justice A.R. Lakshmanan ordered the State Government to submit a reply within a fortnight and take immediate steps.

According to sources, the Government was swift in taking actions.

It has already introduced mid-day meals and begun to sell subsidised rice and wheat at Rs 3 and Rs 2 a kg to the affected workers.

It would start the Sampoorna Gramin Rojgar Yogana too for the workers of the closed estates.

According to the NGO report, 22 tea plantations located in Jalpaiguri and Darjeeling have been closed down, affecting 21,000 permanent workers and a population of 95,000.

The number of plantation deaths could not be established properly because the hospitals hardly maintain any proper record.

Even the miniscule records proved that the number of deaths increased substantially after the closure of tea estates.

Though the State Labour Minister, Mr Mohammed Amin, denied, his colleague, the Agriculture Minister, Mr Kamal Guha, said it was 320. The major Opposition party, the Trinamool Congress, found it was around 500 and regional newspapers apprehended that it would be well over 600.

According to Mr Swapan Ganguly, a member of the NGO, the organisation carried out a survey of 204 households in two plantations.

"The number of deaths per year increased by 241 per cent after the closure of the estates. For the male folks, it is as high as 404 per cent", Mr Ganguly said.

While conducting the survey, the NGO found that the average calorific food intake of an individual dropped from a high of 2,763 calories, when the estates were operational, to a low of 203 calories.

"All families we met reported a huge rise in the consumption of tea flowers, wild leaves, wild tubers and bamboo shoots. We were told that there were no snakes or rats left in the plantation as all of these had been caught and eaten by the hungry workers and their families", he said.

The NGO has found that in quite a few of these closed gardens, the management employees have fled from the gardens leaving the workers in the lurch.

The affected workers are supposed to get subsidised ration, free quarters, drinking water and electricity apart from the regular wages from the estate owners.

Moreover, a number of companies were not regular in paying the provident fund, despite deducting it from the workers' wages. "It was even common for plantations owned by well-known and large companies such as Duncans Agro Industries", Mr Ganguly said.