Two die in locked Kanthalguri garden - Union leaders say scarcity of food and treatment to blame for deaths

TT, June 9: Two more persons died yesterday in the Kanthalguri tea garden in the Dooars, where work had been suspended since May 14.

Trade union leaders alleged lack of food was the reason for the deaths at the estate where workers and their families were subsisting on a single meal a day. Three labourers died in the garden at Banarhat, Jalpaiguri district, in the last week of May.

Yesterday, Rabi Mahali, 30, died at the Jalpaiguri district hospital. Babita Oraon, 35, breathed her last at the labour quarters in the garden.

Jagannath Sarkar, the chief medical officer of health of Jalpaiguri, said today that Mahali had died of a cardiac arrest yesterday evening.

“He was admitted to the hospital two days back with severe weakness and some other ailments. According to the instructions from the district magistrate, health teams are visiting the garden on a regular basis, examining the residents, providing them necessary medicines and admitting patients who are in a serious condition to hospitals,” Sarkar said.

The CMOH said he had no information about the death of Oraon, who worked in the garden that had suspended work on May 14.

An Intuc leader said both Mahali and Oraon had died because of starvation. “We are getting some help from the administration after the news of three workers’ deaths appeared in the media. But the help is inadequate in a garden where hundreds of people are suffering from malnutrition. They don’t have money to buy food and survive on a single meal a day,” said Chandrakant Jha of the Intuc.

Maheshwar Mahali, a leader of the Progressive Tea Workers’ Union that is affiliated to the Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Vikas Parishad, said Oraon couldn’t be admitted to hospital because she had no money.

“Her family didn’t have the money to arrange for an ambulance and shift her to a hospital. Oraon was malnourished and had tuberculosis. She died at her house last night,” said the trade union leader.

Jha also spoke on similar lines. “Workers are penniless and cannot afford to hire an ambulance to take the patients to the nearby health centres or hospitals. People of Kanthalguri are dying because of lack of treatment.”

Kanthalguri was dubbed the “garden of death” after around 300 residents died there between 2002 and 2007. The estate had been closed from 2002 and it reopened in 2010 under a new management.

When the Calcutta-based Airon Infrastructure Ltd reopened the estate on June 2, 2010, 1,149 of the 1,478 permanent labourers were assigned work. Trade union leaders said the remaining people eked out a living by working as daily-wage labourers or crushing stones on the bank of the Reti-Sukriti river.

Work was suspended in the plantation on May 14 because of alleged labour unrest. The workers resorted to demonstrations to protest the payment of Rs 65 although the industry had raised the daily wage to Rs 95. The management said as the garden was in dire straits, it was not possible to pay a worker Rs 95.

The management said several issues needed to be resolved before it could withdraw the suspension of work notice. In a letter written to trade union representatives last week, Subrata Saha, the manager of Kanthalguri, said: “There are several issues which need to be addressed, like the demonstrations by workers, lack of help from the administration which was assured ahead of the reopening of the garden. We are not in a position to reopen the garden unless these issues are settled.”

Garden sources said the government had promised electricity and drinking water to the labourers before the reopening of the estate but didn’t keep their word. Although the central government’s 100-day work scheme had been launched in the garden, it was discontinued a few months ago.

Smaraki Mahapatra, the district magistrate of Jalpaiguri, said the administration was taking all possible steps to help Kanthalguri residents.

“We have issued tokens to the residents through the Chamurchi panchayat of Dhupguri block (under which Kanthalguri is located) so that they can get food grain from ration shops. The CMOH has been instructed to send health teams to the garden on a regular basis,” she said.

Mahapatra said she would take up with the management the garden dwellers’ complaints about the non-supply of electricity and drinking water. “The labour department has been asked to hold talks with representatives of trade unions and the management to find a way out to reopen the estate,” she said.