Managers to return to Duncan gardens: Union ... DEAL TO CLEAR WAGE ARREARS AT GOVT-CONVENED MEETING IN CALCUTTA

TT, 2 March 2019, Alipurduar: The Duncan Goenka Group will send back its managers to the gardens they had left in the Dooars last week and disburse wage arrears soon, senior Trinamul leaders said after a tripartite meeting convened by the state labour department in Calcutta on Friday.

No representative of the group could be contacted for comment.

Since last week, the managerial staff from six tea gardens that the group owns in Terai and Dooars left the estates. This was because they could not manage to arrange funds to pay the workers, said sources.

Such sudden departure of the staff left thousands of workers worried. They were apprehensive that the management might have abandoned the gardens again like 2015, when the estates remained close for several months as regular activities came to a halt due to exit of the managerial staff.

"It has been decided that next Tuesday, the managers and other staff will return to The Bagracote tea garden the gardens and will disburse one week's wage. The next day, they will disburse wages of another two weeks. In most of these gardens, wages of eight weeks are due. The remaining dues of five weeks will be cleared in due course. It has been also clarified that once work resumes in these gardens, the management will clear the current wages in due time," said Mannalal Jain, vicepresident, Cha Bagan Trinamul Congress Mazdoor Union over phone from Calcutta.

At the meeting, the trade unions have also asked representatives of the company to draw up a plan as how they intend to run the gardens in future and submit it to the state labour department.

"Officials at the department will review the plan and will call another tripartite meeting within three months' time to apprise us about it," added Jain. In north Bengal, the group owns 13 gardens, two of which are in the hills. Among the remaining 11, 10 are in Dooars and one in Terai.

The development comes as a respite for Trinamul. This is because in 2016, when the Centre decided to acquire seven abandoned tea gardens of Duncans, the group had moved to court.

The state government then took the task to persuade the group's representatives to reopen the gardens..