Labour minister to meet tea hands: TMC

Malay Ghatak

TT, Alipurduar, Dec. 20: Labour minister Malay Ghatak will for the first time meet workers of closed and ailing tea gardens in the Dooars, including those of the Duncans Goenka Group, on December 23 in Uttar Kanya, the north Bengal secretariat.

The Trinamul president of Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar districts, Sourav Chakraborty, announced the meeting that the minister was scheduled to hold at 12.30pm on Wednesday. He said officials of the food and supply as well as labour departments would be present. Trade union leaders and workers would be able to tell the minister about their condition.

Ghatak confirmed in the evening that such a meeting would be held in Uttar Kanya.

The announcement of the meeting comes days after a division bench of Calcutta High Court directed the state government to take an initiative to enact a law to strengthen the social security system of garden workers.

Chief Justice Manjula Chellur had said on December 18: "As the gardens do not come under the purview of the Industrial Disputes Act, there is no specific law with regard to social security of the garden workers in general. The government should take an initiative to formulate a new law to ensure the rights of tea garden workers."

Eight tea gardens in the Dooars are shut. Apart from these, in 14 gardens of the Duncans Industries in the Dooars and in Darjeeling, workers have alleged they are not paid their wage and ration dues since April this year. G.P. Goenka, who owns the Duncans gardens, recently said he wanted to sell a privately held estate to clear the dues of workers.

About 50 people have died in gardens in the Dooars in the last eight-nine months, for which workers and unions have blamed lack of cash, food and health check-ups. This morning, too, a worker of Garganda estate of the Duncans Group died.