Bista slams TMC over Tea garden issues

SNS, SILIGURI, 23 APRIL 2022 : At a time when the state labour department is set to organise the Tea Gold Cup Football Tournament in the tea belt of

North Bengal from 1 May, Darjeeling's BJP MP Raju Bista has termed the Trinamool Congress-led state government as a "stepmother" when it came to issues related to tea and cinchona plantations.

"The step-motherly attitude of TMC government towards the people of Darjeeling Hills, Terai and Dooars has resulted in decades of exploitation of the people, resources and region, without any tangible benefit to the region, who work in the tea gardens and cinchona gardens," Mr Bista said in a Press note.

"The tea garden and cinchona garden workers have been deprived of basics like

their right to parja patta, their right to guaranteed minimum wages, their right to dignified living, and most important of all their connection to their

land," he claimed.

He cited the WB Government's Gazette notification on "Tea Tourism and Allied Business Policy, 2019," which allows tea gardens to use fallow land for "eco-friendly tea tourism and allied business activities."

"Under this policy, the tea companies are allowed to utilise 15% of their garden up to 150 acres for tea tourism and allied business activities. This has in effect made the tea companies that lease these gardens for a few crores, defacto the largest owners of prime land in Darjeeling Hills, Terai and Dooars region. In effect 

tea companies can do whatever they want to in the land they lease for mere Rs 30/ acre - they can build tourism resorts, hydro power generation units, wellness centers, cultural/recreational and exhibition centers, schools, colleges, universities. They can set up horticulture, floriculture, food processing units, packaging units, non-conventional energy resources, social infrastructure and service, tea tourism, animal husbandry etc. Whereas tea garden and cinchona garden workers who have tilled these land With their blood and sweat for generations have been rendered landless till date," he said.

"This is manifest injustice," Mr Bista said.