Minister vows tea wage hike; In A'duar, he slams Centre over tea garden issues

SNS, ALIPURDUAR, 4 DECEMBER 2020 : State labour minister Moloy Ghatak today promised a hike in the dailywages of tea garden workers in the state. He was addressing a public meeting in the Patlakhawa village under Alipurduar Block-I today.

"The state government has again decided to increase the wages of tea garden workers in the state. The wages will see a hike in the next one or two months," Mr Ghatak said.

According to him, tea workers received Rs 67 and 50 paise during the Left Front government, but that the Trinamul Congress government had increased the wages, which, he said, is Rs 176 per day now.

Mr Ghatak also came down heavily on the central government on issues related to tea gardens.

"A BJP central leader once promised to acquire seven closed tea gardens of the Duncans group, but did nothing. It is our government which arranged for the reopening the tea gardens of the Duncans group," he said.

According to political observers in the district, today's mass meeting, mainly organised by the President of the Alipurduar Block-I Trinamul Congress, Manaranjan Dey, was meant to be a show of strength of the ruling party ahead of the approaching Assembly elections.

It may be noted here that the Trinamul Congress lagged behind by more than 30,000 votes in the Alipurduar Legislative Assembly constituency in the last general elections.

District presidents of all the wings of the ruling Trinamul Congress, along with TMCs leaders Mridul Goswami, Ritabrata Banerjee, and Sourav Chakraborty were present in today's meeting, attended by a huge crowd.