Tea workers to get Rs 9 a day from ration saving

ANIRBAN CHOUDHURY, TT, Mar 13, 2018: Alipurduar: The state labour department on Monday announced that tea garden workers would receive Rs 9 additionally along with their daily wage of Rs 150 on account of ration from May.

The interim rate was announced by labour minister Moloy Ghatak.

Ever since the state government has introduced the food security scheme on tea estates, trade unions had been insisting that tea planters pay Rs 660 to each worker as they were saving money.

"Earlier, tea planters used to buy rice and wheat from open market. The food grains were distributed among workers at the subsidised rate of 45 paisa per kilo, which was a non-cash component of the workers' wages. But after the food security scheme was introduced, tea planters got the opportunity to buy the grains at the rate of Rs 2 per kilo which, as usual, were distributed among workers at the same subsidised rate. In this way, tea planters were saving Rs 660 per worker," said Ziaur Alam, the convener of the Joint Forum (an apex body of tea trade unions).

That is why, Alam said, they had been demanding that workers be paid the amount each month, along with their wages.

On Monday, at a meeting of the minimum wage advisory board held in the new secretariat building in Calcutta, minister Ghatak announced that tea planters would pay Rs 9 to each worker everyday along with wages.

"We had demanded Rs 660 in a month which means, around Rs 26 a day because the number of working days in a month, on an average, is 26. Instead, the labour minister announced an interim daily rate of Rs 9," said a trade union leader.