Reading the tea leaves: How Assam’s gardens are riding the cash crunch

For most of the 792 tea estates in Assam, demonetisation and the State government’s order to move over to bank transfer of wages by January was a serious disruption to their routine.

But for NJ Borah, Manager of Namsung estate of Rossel Tea (near Jeypore of Dibrugarh), it came as a golden opportunity to remove some headaches and also bring home decent savings.

An average tea garden in Assam pays fortnightly wages of ₹10-15 lakh. The cash is transferred to gardens against insurance and police protection.

A garden pays ₹7,000-10,000 on insurance and ₹5,000-7,000 on security for each transfer. The average annual cost is estimated at ₹3.5 lakh for a garden and ₹28 crore for the industry.

But Borah has an additional problem. Namsung is located 10 km inside the hilly Dehing Patkai rainforest at the border of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. Arunachal here acts as a thin buffer between Assam and Myanmar.

This is the favourite hideout of Naga and Assamese militants. And, every time his cash chest sets out for the garden through the hilly road, Bora suffers from anxiety.

He wants immediate opening of bank account for his 614 permanent and 1,000 temporary workers. But the State Bank kiosk (CSP) owner at Jeypore is not cooperating.

And Borah is making repeated appeals to the authorities for a remedy.

What Namsung is trying now, a few in the industry did well in advance. Sanjay Borah, Manager of Arun Tea of Gillanders Arbuthnot in Sonitpur district, is one of them.

In August 2014, when the Centre launched Jan Dhan Yojana for financial inclusion, Sanjay swung into action to open accounts for every worker and his/her family members, including kids.

By December 2015, the garden submitted 1,070 applications to Dhekiajuli branch of United Bank of India. Nearly 900 accounts were opened before demonetisation.

The bank is yet to process the rest.

That’s not all. A month before the demonetisation, Sanjay encouraged his workers to save more.

Approximately, 119 workers agreed for deductions from their fortnightly wages. The plan was to open recurring accounts for each of them.

With the State now asking for bank transfer of wages, Sanjay rolled back the plan.

Bhupindra Singh Deora went through this account opening process twice.

First during his stint in a remote Cachhar garden in 2014 and second after joining Dhekiajuli Tea Estate of Murugappa Group in January 2015.

By the time demonetisation was announced, 80 per cent of Dhekiajuli’s 3,000 workers had bank accounts.

Around 150 workers volunteered to take wages through banks and convinced others about the merits of doing so. SBI agreed to install one ATM in the garden. Plans are afoot to run six more micro ATMs through educated unemployed.

But, tea workers are perceived to be illiterate.

Can they use ATMs? Can they remember PIN? Or are biometrics the most suitable option?

Sanjay has an interesting answer. First, biometrics may not work well with tea workers as years of plucking tea leaves, erases impressions.

Second, contrary to popular perception, 65 per cent of the workers sign his attendance register.

“With a little bit of training and encouragement they can use an ATM like anyone else,” he says.

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