Distress sale at Duncans estate

Picture by Anirban Choudhury 

TT, 25 Oct 2019, Alipurduar: The Birpara tea estate, one of the gardens of the Duncans Goenka Group located in Alipurduar district, has been lying abandoned for around 20 days as there is no managerial staff since October 4.

This has prompted over 2,000 workers of the garden to form operating management committees that are selling tea leaves plucked by the labourers. Located at 60 km from  Alipurduar town,the workers of Birpara have turned jobless for the second time since 2015.

In 2015, the company had abandoned a number of its gardens, including Birpara,without serving any notice.The state and the Centre had intervened and the garden was reopened on November 2017.

Since then, the garden has  been running somehow but the workers were happy as they were paid wages and some other dues. Things were fine for almost two years but again the garden has been abandoned. We will soon speak with officials of the state labour department and bring it to the notice of the state labour minister,” said Mohan Sharma, the president of the the Cha Bagan Trinamul Congress Mazdoor Union. 

According to the workers, they are yet to receive wages of two months, rations of three fortnights and bonus of two years.

“ After the garden reopened in 2017 management representatives had assured us that they would clear other dues like provident fund. But hardly any payment was made,” said a worker.

At the garden, the jobless workers are in a deplorable conditions as there is no drinking water and hardly any medical facility at the estate hospital.

Sourcess aid the manager, who was there in the garden till October 4, left on some personal errand. Later, he tendered his resignation.

About a week ago, a person was sent by the management  to workin the manager's post but the agitated workers did not let him enter and demanded that their dues be cleared immediately.

The workers then formed the OMCs and are now selling around 15,000 kg of tea leaves a day to other gardens.

 “We are selling tea leaves at Rs 12 a kilo and paying Rs 5 a kilo to the workers, ”  said a worker who is with an OMC.

Calls to the office of Duncans in Calcutta went unanswered.  Officials of the labour department said they were in a fix as no formal communication had reached them.  “ We have written to the management to know what their plans are but no reply has reached us so far. Selling of tea leaves is illegal but as there has been no response or complaint from the management, we cannot take any steps. We have informed our higher authorities about the situation, ” said Neil Chhetri, the assistant labour commissioner of Birpara.