Sick garden survey plan

TT, Jalpaiguri: The state government will conduct a survey in sick and closed tea gardens ahead of panchayat polls this year and plans to reopen some by forming workers ' cooperatives.

Sourav Chakraborty, the Alipurduar MLA and chairman of Jalpaiguri Central Cooperative Bank, said here on Friday that the bank will conduct the survey and submit a report to chief minister Mamata Banerjee by first week of March.

" As per the chief minister ' s instruction, a meeting was held in Calcutta on Thursday where a group of ministers and officials of different government departments were present. At the meeting, it was decided that they will assist the bank so that it can provide loans to residents of sick and closed gardens through cooperatives and help them to develop a mechanism so that they can run the plantations and sell tealeaves to earn a living. We will shortly start the survey and will submit the report to the chief minister by the first week of next month, " said Chakaraborty.

During the survey, necessary information like number of sick and closed tea gardens located across Dooars and Terai area and the total number of workers, their present socio- economic conditions, how many of them have left the garden and whether any of them has gone missing and condition of plantations would be collected.

If required, those conducting the survey will take help from concerned BDOs and elected representatives, the MLA said.

The plan is to form selfhelp groups of workers in all such sick and closed tea estates.

" There are 19 sick and closed gardens in Jalpaiguri and another nine in Alipurduar.

Our plan is to form SHGs and then cooperatives, which in turncan be provided with loans at low rates of interest, " Chakraborty said.