Rice subsidy gap puts glare on govt

TT, Alipurduar, April 3: Government oversight has denied workers in 11 closed and ailing tea gardens the opportunity to buy subsidised rice at 45 paise a kilo, making several thousand workers and their families feel they were discriminated against by the state government.

When the state government announced rice for garden workers at 45 paise a kilo, it said garden owners would procure the rice under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) that is given out to the poor at Rs 2 a kg. The owners would then sell the rice at 45 paise a kg to the workers, and bear the Rs 1.55 subsidy per kilo.

Three closed gardens - Dheklapara, Bundapani and Joybirpara - and the eight ailing estates of the Duncans group do not have owners to run the day-to-day affairs of the gardens. Hence, no one to bear the subsidy.

In open gardens that have owners, rice is being given to workers at 45 paise a kilo.

The 11 ailing and closed gardens, where over 35,000 garden workers and their families reside, are in the Madarihat constituency in the Dooars, which other than the Darjeeling hills is a big tea belt area in Bengal.

"Workers and their families in none of the closed and sick tea estates in the Dooars, including the Madarihat block, are getting rice at the rate of 45 paisa per kilo, unlike those who are residents of tea gardens which are open and functional," said Robinson Kuzur, a worker in the Birpara Tea Estate owned by the Duncans group in Alipurduar district.

Birpara is one of the seven tea estates of the Duncans which the Centre has acquired by invoking the Tea Act.

Madarihat has the highest concentration of closed and sick gardens in the Dooars at 11.

Administrative sources said there are around 35,000 voters in these 11 tea estates and many are angry with the state government.

"There is a technical problem which the state government has failed to resolve so far. As it was decided to introduce NFSA in the tea gardens where planters used to provide ration to the workers, the planters were told by the state to procure food grains at Rs 2 a kilo and distribute it at 45 paisa per kilo. They were to bear a subsidy of Rs 1.55 per kilo," a political observer said.

"The government campaigned that it is providing the food grains to the entire tea population at a cheaper rate than the NFSA rate which is Rs 2 a kilo. That, however, is not the truth," he added.

"In the closed and sick tea estates, it was decided that self-help groups would be engaged in distributing rations. As there is no tea planter in the closed and ailing gardens to bear the subsidy, the state should have borne the subsidy. However, no directive came to the food and supply departments in the tea producing districts that the state will bear the subsidy. As a result, self-help groups are distributing rations among the workers and their families at the rate of Rs 2 per kilo," the political observer said.

Diptesh Oraon, a worker of Birpara, said the cheaper rice went to gardens that are open and healthy, while workers in gardens where "we need it the most" were left out.

Some of the workers said that Mamata had announced in November that the state would acquire the Duncans gardens. "It turned out to be an empty promise and eventually, the Centre had to step in and acquire the gardens," Suresh Mahali, a worker of the closed Bundapani Tea Estate, said.

Local leaders of the BJP have found an opportunity in the rice subsidy disparity and highlighted this in their campaign before Narendra Modi's rally in Birpara on April 7.

"We are waiting for the Prime Minister and hope he will speak on these issues," Ramesh Kami, a worker of Demdima Tea Estate that is a Duncans garden acquired by the Centre, said.

In Madarihat, the BJP candidate had come second in the 2011 Assembly polls, losing to the RSP candidate by 7,909 votes. Also, in the 2014 Parliament polls, the BJP was in top position in this Assembly segment. Trinamul, which eventually had won the Alipurduar Parliament seat, was in the third position here.

This year, RSP has fielded departing MLA Kumari Kuzur and the BJP Manoj Tigga. Trinamul has fielded Padam Lama.

Gopal Pradhan, an RSP leader based in Birpara, however, said the BJP would not be able to leave much impact this time.

"We are also highlighting these disparities and faulty policies of the Trinamul government which have left jobless workers deprived of benefits. Trinamul would not be able to score much in Madarihat seat this time. The political circumstances were different in 2014. In the upcoming elections, the BJP would not be much of a factor here. Also, we have the support of Congress this time and it is known that Intuc has a support base in the tea estates in this constituency," Pradhan said.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY AVIJIT SINHA IN SILIGURI