Work starts in Duncans tea estate

TT, Alipurduar, Nov. 23: Workers of Birpara Tea Estate owned by the Duncans Group started work today after almost 19 months.

The garden with 2,200 permanent and around 2,000 temporary labourers is one of the seven plantations of the group in Alipurduar district that had been abandoned in April 2015.

Rishi Malhotra, the senior manager of Birpara estate, said: "Now, we will concentrate on maintenance of the tea bushes as the lean period is about to begin. The factory will take 15 days to become operational as some work is required."

Asked about workers' wages, he said: "When we receive money from the bank, we will pay Rs 1,000 to each worker as advance. We will continue to pay the fortnightly wages as per the government directive. We need co-operation from the workers, unions and the administration to run the garden."

The garden is 64km from here and the management had left it without issuing any notice in April last year.

The decision to reopen the garden was taken at a tripartite meeting last week. At the meeting, the Duncans Group had said the other six abandoned estates in the district would be reopened by March 31, 2017. It was also decided that bipartite talks would be held in June next year to discuss the dues of the workers during the abandoned period.

Today, a puja was organised at Birpara to mark the reopening of the estate. However, most workers did not attend it.

"We are worried about our dues as it was not discussed at the meeting. We will work but with a lot of uncertainty," garden worker Sonali Lohar said.