s part of its bid to pull together plantation managements claiming non-viability on one side and workers agitating for a wage hike, until the consensus hammered out today, the State Cabinet is learnt to have decided to sanction a slew of sops a week ago. These include hiving plantation tax from Rs.700 to Rs.500 per hectare, standardisation of agriculture income tax on a par with Central income tax, and subsidised power for plantations.
The Cabinet meeting on October 7 is understood to have approved some of the proposals submitted by a panel comprising Finance, Revenue, Power and Labour Secretaries, which was constituted to look into the plantations crisis.
Labour Department sources told The Hindu that currently, tariff at industrial rates is being levied for power used for irrigation purposes in plantations.
The committee recommended that the plantation managements may appeal to the State Electricity Regulatory Commission and based on its decision, the government may subsidise the tariff.
Modalities in this score would be worked out by Kerala State Electricity Board Limited (KSEBL). The proposals to cut agriculture income tax and plantation tax and reduce seigniorage of rubber trees would be included in the budget for the next financial year.
The committee had also said that the Kerala Land Reforms Act does not prohibit conversion from one plantation crop to another.
Crop conversion
It also said that change from one food crop to another can be permitted by the District Collectors under provisions of the Kerala Land Utilization Order, 1967. But the Cabinet rejected both these proposals, the sources said.
The Cabinet cleared the proposal to upgrade 24 schools in the plantations which have Tamil and English as media of instruction, to cope up with the aspirations of the workers and their wards. New schools would be provided in plantations which do not have them at present, through the Bhavanam Foundation, a State government company.
An annual per capita grant of Rs.10,000 per student, per school would be given to engage teachers. The foundation would also improve the dilapidated workers quarters, called lines, in the plantation using Rs.20 crore allocated for the purpose. Permissive sanction would be issued to local governments to provide drinking water, sanitation facilities and motorable roads to the plantations.
The RSBY Scheme will be extended to cover all registered plantation workers for which it has been proposed to provide Rs.60 lakh as State share, the sources said
