The Hindu Business Line : Govt bid to revive closed tea gardens

The Tea Board is identifying six tea gardens, that have been closed down, in three States for revival through the participation of workers' association and supported by the Union and the respective State Governments.

Mr Jairam Ramesh, Union Minister of State for Commerce, told reporters that of these six gardens, two each would be selected from Assam, West Bengal and Kerala.

At present, there are 37 tea gardens that have been closed. Of these, three are in Assam, 14 in West Bengal and 20 in Kerala. He admitted that there were several other gardens which were falling sick but those were not being considered at the moment.

Regarding the revival programme, he said the Tea Board would be closely studying the Kanan Devan model used by Tata Tea in Kerala. He, however, ruled out duplication because those were healthy and running estates.

"It would not be a cooperative either. It would be an experiment whereby the workers would participate mostly. At our end we would try to manage some funds from Nabard and other banks. State governments would also have to play a supportive role," Mr Ramesh said.

According to him, the ownership and management of these gardens are likely to be with the workers association that is being contemplated. Elaborating on it further, he said, it could be women self help groups too.

"The idea is to do something for these gardens. May be out of six, we would succeed only in one. At least the workers of one garden would benefit. Then we would replicate the model in other gardens also," he said.

He ruled out an apex body for overseeing the total activities of these six gardens. Instead, he said, there would be six individual groups looking after the interest of each garden.

In this context, he agreed that the tea garden owners are bearing a lot of social costs of the plantation workers and added that Government is contemplating take a share of around 50 per cent it.

"Both the Union Government and the State Governments would have to bear the burden. We wish to share the total cost equally among the Government and the private owner," he said.

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