Tea cultivators welcome state govt’s decision to regularise small plantations
‘Anyone who set up a tea plantation on their own land between June 30, 2001, and November 7, 2017, has to pay the rate of conversion of land...’
Small scale tea growers of the region have expressed their gratitude to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for regularising small plantations that came up between 2001 and 2017. This has been a long-standing demand of 50,000 small-scale tea gardens of North Bengal.
A gazette notification on April 5, stated: “...Now, for the interest of large number of laborers and stakeholders, the state government has decided to regularise the conversion of small tea gardens land made before November 7, 2017 which was considered by the State Government through the enactment of the West Bengal Land Reforms (Third Amendment) Act, 2017. Anyone who set up a tea plantation on their own land between June 30, 2001, and November 7, 2017, has to pay the rate of conversion of land by plantation of tea on Raiyati land, which is fixed at Rs 25,000 per hectare. For the settlement of small tea gardens on Government
vested land that came up to November 7, 2017, the rate of Salami is fixed at Rs. 50,000 per hectare. The farmers will get the lands on a lease period of 30 years.”
The notification has been welcomed by all stakeholders. Bijoygopal Chakraborty, president of the Confederation of Indian Small Tea Growers’ Associations (CISTA), said: “On March 28, we came to know through the Millennium Post that the state government is going to take this step. We thank the West Bengal Government for making it official through the Gazette notification.”
In Bengal, small tea plantations are spread over districts of Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar, Cooch Behar, and North Dinajpur.
The small growers contribute around 65 per cent of the tea produced in Bengal. There were over 50,000 small tea growers in North Bengal. However, only a few of us have the NOC that the state government had issued around 20 years
back. As most growers do not have an NOC for the land on which they run their plantations, they do not have official recognition.
Chakraborty added: “In the past also we had tried to draw the attention of the state government regarding this issue. Small tea growers provide jobs to around 25 lakh people in the region. We are first-generation entrepreneurs, and all those associated with the sector are local residents of North Bengal.”
“An investment of over Rs. 12,000 crore is involved. Owing to this notification, We can now say that we are Tea Planters. We can also avail various benefits of state and central governments owing to this,” he said.
