Soon, tripartite meeting to be held to sort tea garden issues

Kolkata: In a bid to take a final decision to ensure hike in the daily wage and other related issues of tea garden workers, a tripartite meeting is scheduled to be held on February 12.

The meeting will be held in Uttarkanya, the headquarters of the state government in North Bengal. The state Labour minister Malay Ghatak will be present in the meeting and there will be discussions with representatives of workers and tea garden owners.

It may be mentioned that earlier, the daily wage of a tea garden worker was Rs 67. Later, the minimum daily wage of tea garden workers in the state went up by 200 percent after the change of guard in the state.

The minimum daily wage of the tea garden workers was Rs 67 in 2011, which was later increased to Rs 132.50.

Now, there has been a proposal of increasing the minimum daily wage to Rs 150, which is likely to go up. It may be mentioned that laws pertaining to the tea gardens are Central Acts and there has never been a fixed daily minimum wage of the tea garden workers.

Daily wage of tea garden workers in Bengal is the highest among all other states in the whole country. It is Rs 122.50 in Assam and even lesser in the southern parts of the country. It may be mentioned that tea workers also get wheat, paddy, fuel, medical facilities, shoes, electricity etc. from their employers.

It was in September 2017 when a tripartite meeting was held to clear bonus of tea garden workers and to take initiatives for reopening of the gardens.

It may be mentioned that the Mamata Banerjee government has taken several steps to ensure social security of tea garden workers. A special fund was created, using which the tea garden workers were provided with different benefits when the gardens remained close.

Moreover, the state government has taken steps as much as was possible to ensure smooth running of the tea gardens, on which the entire economy of the region depends.