All’s not well yet in Darjeeling’s tea gardens

Indrani Dutta, TH, KOLKATA,  OCTOBER 14, 2017 :More than a fortnight since the bandh in Darjeeling hills was called off, normalcy is yet to be restored in the tea gardens which are now infested with overgrowths, weeds and insects.

“Attendance has been very thin in most of the gardens, averaging about 40%,” said an official of the Darjeeling Tea Association (DTA), the apex industry body for the industry.

Curiously, many workers have not collected their bonus payments either. Enquiries revealed that the payments had been made only in some 30-odd gardens. Bonus at the rate of 19.8% for 2016-17 was announced just days before Durga Puja.

Work at the tea gardens had been disrupted since June 8 and came to a halt from June 15, 2017 following a strike call given by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) demanding Statehood for Darjeeling.

The entire region was in turmoil since then, with the government clamping down on the GJM leaders on the one-hand and fissures in their leadership leading to factionalism on the other.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the owner of a heritage Darjeeling tea brand said that many workers, especially men, had gone underground fearing prosecution by the government. The leadership uncertainty too had created problems. Some workers had migrated to neighbouring States for work.

There are about 55,000 permanent workers at the 87 tea gardens in Darjeeling hills. A majority of them are women. “Barring the essential service staff in charge of security, water supply and maintenance, none got paid for the period of the nearly four-month strike. We were surprised when they did not even show interest in collecting their bonuses,” said the manager of a tea garden.

Shearing operations

The industry’s expectations of commencing ‘shearing operations’ to cut the overgrowths on the tea estates were belied. Workers were apprehensive of stepping into the estates, saying that they were not trained for this ‘plucking’.

DTA officials said that in this scenario, prospects of the first flush crop (starting early February), yielding premium white tea, appeared to be doomed.

“We need to clear the bushes for that,” a source said. Even as the industry awaits a positive response from the Centre to its appeals for a package to help it tide over the situation, it seems set to close the year with an output of only about 2 million kg as against 8 million kg in 2016.