Flood damage panel

TT, Siliguri, Aug. 12: Sourav Chakraborty, the chairman of the Tea Directorate, today said it would constitute a committee to ascertain the damage caused to tea gardens by the recent flood in north Bengal. 

“Around 35 tea estates in Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar districts were badly affected by the recent flood. We have decided to form a committee that would check the condition of these gardens and assess the losses. The committee would comprise representatives of the tea industry, trade unions and NGOs which work in the tea belt,” Chakraborty said after a meeting with north Bengal development minister Rabindranath Ghosh at Uttarkanya here today.

The committee, he said, would submit its report to the directorate by August 29. 

According to Chakraborty, the plan was to give the affected estates financial assistance from the Rs 100 crore corpus of the directorate.

He informed that 22 posts in different categories had been sanctioned by the government for the directorate. 

“It will have its office at Vivekananda Bhawan on Hill Cart Road in Siliguri. We will also ask for an office of the directorate in Calcutta,” he said.