Five die in Dooars tea plantations - Workers allege lack of food and medicines caused deaths in Duncans and Redbank estates

TT, Dec. 3: Five persons have died in three tea gardens since Tuesday purportedly because of lack of food and medicines, prompting trade unions to demand a permanent solution to the problems in the closed and ailing plantations.

Three workers, two from Birpara Tea Estate owned by the Duncans Goenka Group in Alipurduar district, and one from the closed Redbank Tea Estate in Jalpaiguri, died yesterday.

Maila Dorjee, 55, and Risadh Hussain, 56, were workers from Birpara and they died at Birpara State General Hospital.

"Both were suffering from liver problems and didn't have proper food," said a worker of the Birpara garden.

Mahabir Mahali, 50, was the worker from Redbank who died yesterday.

Another worker of Birpara, Budhi Kuzur, 55, passed away at her home today.

"My mother was ill for about a month and parts of her body were paralysed. We took her to Birpara State General Hospital and doctors referred her to North Bengal Medical College and Hospital. We would have to spend at least Rs 2,000 to take her there and we couldn't afford it. So, we brought her home. We are somehow managing to arrange for two square meals a day as the garden management has stopped paying wages. My mother became weak because of lack of adequate food," Sudhir, Budhi's son, said.

Kancha Biswakarma, 48, a resident of Gandrapara Tea Estate, also owned by the Duncans in Alipurduar district, died on Tuesday. He was not a worker of the garden.

Since April, the workers and their families of the Duncans gardens - around 75,000 people in total - have been surviving on food and medicines given by the state government as the company has stopped paying wages and providing rations in the 14 gardens because of financial constraints.

The Redbank estate has been shut since 2013 and the state government had cancelled its lease last year.

Chitta Dey, the convener of the Co-ordination Committee of Tea Plantation Workers, said the five persons had died because of lack of food and medicines in the gardens.

"People are dying on closed and ailing tea estates as the relief provided by the state is inadequate. It is high time that the state and the Centre intervened and found out a permanent solution to the problems faced by the residents of different tea gardens," he said.

Sabyasachi Saha, the Birapara-Madarihat block medical officer, however, denied Dey's charges.

"Residents of Birpara and Gandrapara gardens died because of different diseases. None of them died because of lack of food or treatment," said Saha.

Prakash Mridha, the chief medical officer of health, Jalpaiguri, said the worker of Redbank was ill and that was why he had died. "The death is not because of lack of treatment or food," he said.

Ziaur Alam, the Jalpaiguri district Citu secretary, said the state and central government should act immediately and take necessary steps to ensure that workers of Duncans gardens' were given wages and rations. He also asked the state government to find a new owner for the closed Redbank garden.

"The state government had cancelled the land lease of four tea estates, Redbank, Dharanipur, Surendranagar and Bandapani (all in the Dooars), in 2014. A year has passed since then and the state has not taken any initiative to find new owners and reopen the gardens. The chief minister had publicly said the state would take over and run tea estates if the planters failed to deliver their responsibilities. We don't take such statements at face value," said Alam.

Sourav Chakraboty, the Trinamul president of Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar districts, said: "The state is providing food grains and medical help to the residents of closed and ailing tea estates. Some people are trying to create problems by calling strikes. The strikes cannot solve problems in the tea sector."