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The Karnataka Government is working out a mechanism with the Centre to bring in plantation (cashew, coffee and tea) workers under the ambit of social welfare schemes.
“Since the Plantation Act is Centre's subject, we have initiated a dialogue with the Central Government to bring in social welfare schemes to the plantation sector in Karnataka,” said Mr B.N. Bache Gowda, Karnataka Minister for Labour and Sericulture.
“At present nearly 5 lakh workers are engaged in cashew, coffee and tea plantation spread across five districts in the State and plantation workers are facing problems in taking care of the social cost,” he added.
Modified central scheme
The State Government is planning to roll out a modified version of the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) - a Central scheme which takes care of the healthcare cost of people in below poverty line (BPL) category in all the 30 districts in the State.
The Union Minister for Labour and Employment, Mr Mallikarjuna Kharge, said “we are concentrating on the unorganised sector workers like rural BPL families, beedi workers, rickshaw pullers, taxi drivers, auto drivers and sanitary workers.”
“Just like Karnataka, we have got few requests from other plantation states. We will engage them shortly,” he added.
The United Planters' Association of Southern India (Upasi) and Karnataka Planters' Association (KPA) have been demanding that both the Central and state governments should share the social cost.
The Upasi President, Mr C.N. Nataraj, in his pre-budget memorandum to the Centre had said:
“One of the main reasons that the Indian plantation sector is not able to withstand the competition from other producing countries on account of high cost of production which is directly linked to the social costs which is not there in any of the other competing producing countries.”
Sharing social costs
“The least the government can do is extend a helping hand by sharing the social costs of the plantations which in the case of other sectors are borne by the Government or its agencies,” he added.
Welcoming such a move, the KPA Chairman, Mr Sahadev Balakrishna, said: “The Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) constituted by the Central Government few years ago to look into the various issues relating to plantation sector had recommended that sharing of social costs by management 50 per cent, Centre 40 per cent and State 10 per cent should be kindly implemented.”
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