The death of a tea garden worker at Bagrakote Tea Garden in West Bengal’s Jalpaiguri district has once again raised the plight of tea garden workers in abandoned tea gardens of the State.
Mukti Santhal, 44, a lone bread-earner of the family, died of cardio-vascular arrest on Monday in the tea garden owned by the Duncan Group.
According to the district administration, the Duncan Group had exited in June this year and the 1,200 workers are surviving by selling tea leavers of the garden.
“The situation is likely to worsen in winter when there will be no leaves and the workers will have nothing to work upon,” a senior official of Jalpaiguri district told The Hindu . About 16 such tea gardens in Duars and the Terai region of north Bengal have been abandoned by the owners putting a question mark over the fate of thousands of tea garden workers and their families. Jyotirmoy Tanti, the Sub divisional officer ( SDO) of Mal subdivision, denied that the death of the worker was due to starvation.
“There was seven kilograms of food grains in her home when we visited the place on Monday. Moreover, the administration has extended the Antodaya Anna Yojana and Sahay schemes to the workers,” Mr. Tanti said.
Veteran trade union activist and convener of the Coordination Committee of Tea Plantation workers of West Bengal (an umbrella of 18 trade unions) Chitta Dey said that the garden where the death occurred was “de-facto closed.”
“What will happen from November to February when there will be no tea leaves? The issue requires immediate intervention of the Ministry of Commerce and Industries and the State government’s Labour Department,” Mr. Dey added.
