Hike for small tea gardens

TT, Jalpaiguri: Around 125 medium tea plantations - gardens without factories - in Jalpaiguri and Cooch Behar will start paying revised daily wages of Rs 150, a hike of Rs 17.

The decision was made at a meeting of the Small & New Tea Gardens' Forum affiliated to Indian Tea Planters' Association (ITPA) held here on Tuesday.

Since January this year, tea estates are paying workers at the new rate after planters accepted a state proposal for an interim hike of Rs 17.50 over the previous wage rate of Rs 132.50.

Sources said the forum's members included 115 tea plantations in Jalpaiguri and 10-odd plantations in Cooch Behar, each 40 to 300 acres in size.

"None of these plantations has factories. They produce tealeaves and sell to bought-leaf factories. The number of workers is also different, vis-à-vis the plantation area, and ranges from 40 to 300," said Sanjit Pal, convener of the forum.

According to him, there are around 12,500 workers in these gardens. "From now on, each owner of the plantations will pay workers at the revised rate," added Pal.

The small tea growers - who have plantations measuring around 25 acres or less - are yet to decide on increasing wages.

"We will shortly hold a meeting to make a decision on the issue. Our members have faced huge problems in the last season, particularly due to decline in prices of tealeaves. On many occasions, they had to sell the produce at rates which are below the production cost. We need to know whether they are financially capable of increasing the wage rates," said Bijoygopal Chakraborty, secretary, Jalpaiguri Zilla Ksudra Cha Chashi Samiti.

As the wage rate has been revised in tea estates, there is pressure from workers employed at their plantations to increase the rate, added Chakraborty.