Four cabinet ministers to visit North Bengal tea gardens

Suman Chakraborti,TNN | Jul 12, 2014, KOLKATA: A team of four cabinet ministers of the Mamata Banerjee government, state labour minister Moloy Ghatak, food supplies minister Jyotipriya Mullick, North Bengal development minister Gautam Deb and law and judicial department minister Chandrima Bhattacharya will visit the six closed tea plantations in Dooars in North Bengal before chief minister Mamata Banerjee visits North Bengal next week.

According to sources from the state cabinet, the ministers are scheduled to visit the four tea plantations of Raipur, Surendranagar, Red Bank and Dharanipur in Jalpaiguri on July 15 and will visit another two tea plantations at Dheklapara and Bandapani in Dooars to have a look on the condition of the tea gardens there.

Sources also said that the ministers will also hold a meeting with authorities concerned at the North Bengal secretariat at Uttarkanya on July 15 following the visits at the tea plantations. The labour department has also called for a tripartite meeting to discuss and settle on the tea workers wages at Uttarkanya the next day on July 16.

It was decided that the team of ministers will go on the tour of tea garden after being prodded by the chief minister. Sources said that the state labour department have already started the process of giving government allowances of Rs 1,500 per month to each jobless worker in the four tea gardens at Red Bank, Dharanipur, Surendranagar and Bandapani and more decisions will follow after the ministers visit the tea gardens.