Workers of closed tea gardens to get soft loan

The state government on Tuesday announced soft loan to be provided to the planters of closed and sick tea gardens of North Bengal from the Rs 100 crore special corpus fund for tea industry.

The decision came after state labour minister Malay Ghatak held few rounds of meetings with the tea planters, trade union leaders and the officials of Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar districts here at Uttar Kanya.

State food minister Jyotipriya Mullick also attended the meeting. Later, speaking to reporters, Mr Ghatak said, “The loan at low interest rate would be provided to the owners of sick and closed tea gardens to be used for the welfare of workers.” The minister said the condition to get the loan is that the planters should use the loan only to carry out workers’ welfare activities.

He said the state government is working to extend the National Food Security Act to the tea gardens by January 1, 2016. Under the act, the beneficiaries would get subsidised ration. The act was implemented in the state from September.

State government has agreed to extend all cooperation to the management of Duncan Group to run its tea gardens, after the management assured the state to pay dues of the workers and infuse Rs 70 crore to run their gardens.