Many plantation workers from northeast India, including Assam, have begun finding alternative jobs.
About 40 workers from Assam left in a bus to Bengaluru from Suntikoppa on Wednesday as their employer promised to deploy them in his farmhouse in Tumakuru besides providing them jobs in his factories in Bengaluru city, said a relief camp co-ordinator at Suntikoppa, Shantharam Kamath.
“We contacted the estate owner who was in Bengaluru and he booked an entire bus to transport them. He has promised to re-employ the workers in his properties in Tumakuru and Bengaluru,” said Mr. Kamath.
In all, 70 workers from the northeast have left the camp in the last few days after having found alternative livelihood. “About 30 of them found a job in plantations not affected by floods and have been re-employed in and around Suntikoppa,” Mr. Kamath said.
Anthony, who lost his land and house in the floods and is housed in St. Mary’s School, said some of the workers from Assam left the camp early on Thursday in search of jobs and later confirmed that they were roped in for clearing some of the plantations in and around Suntikoppa. Relief officer of the camp H.K. Pandu said 45 people from Assam were handpicked by the “writers” of the estate for sundry jobs and they left the camp.
Another relief officer at Madapura said the camp had about 160 people and they were shifted to Somwarpet. “But those from Assam had found jobs in local plantations and left,” he added.
R.K. Chandra, a tribal leader working in Somwarpet, said that migrant workers from Assam seek job during the coffee picking season, sometime during October–November, and stay on for a few months and return. “But the crisis is for the local workers who have lost their land and means of livelihood,” he said.
