Tea garden workers to decide fate of GTA Chairman Relief Fund

The fund was initiated in March 2020 during the first wave of Covid-19 to help tea garden workers tide over the pandemic. 

Amitava Banerjee  |   MP   |  24 Sept 2022 | Darjeeling: "Tea garden workers will decide on how the GTA Chairman's Relief Fund will be utilised," stated GTA chief Anit Thapa on Friday. 

Thapa's statement comes in wake of political outfits, including the TMC and Hamro Party, protesting against a GTA resolution adopted by Bharatiya Gorkha Prajatantrik Morcha Sabhasads that the GTA chairman's Relief Fund will be utilised to build a Shramik Bhawan at the North Bengal Medical College and Hospital. 

The fund was initiated in March 2020 during the first wave of Covid-19 to help tea garden workers tide over the pandemic. 

At present, there is more than Rs 2 crore in the fund. The GTA Sabha on September 19 had resolved to construct a Shramik Bhawan at North Bengal Medical College and Hospital for welfare of the 'shramiks' out of the relief fund raised during the Covid period. 

Both Binoy Tamang, the TMC Sabhasad and Ajoy Edwards, the Hamro Party Sabhasad had urged that the fund be disbursed among tea garden workers before Dussehra as "Shramik Bhawans are constructed by the government." 

Thapa on Friday stated that the fate of the fund will not be decided by leaders but by the tea garden workers. 

"We will constitute a committee and visit each and every tea garden in the Hills. We will ask the workers if they want money or Shramik Bhawan. 

If they want money, we will distribute the fund among them. If they want a Shramik Bhawan, it will be constructed. We will also tell them how much money each will receive in case they want that," remarked Thapa. 

There are 87 tea gardens in the Hills employing 55,000 permanent workers and around 15,000 temporary workers. 

In another development, tea garden workers under the banner of the tea trade union affiliated to the Bharatiya Gorkha Prajatantrik Morcha staged a demonstration at the Assistant Labour Commissioner's office in Darjeeling. 

"We fail to understand why this step-motherly treatment is being meted out. If tea garden workers in Terai and Dooars receive 20% bonus in a single payment mode, why will the same be disbursed to us in two installments? Isn't Darjeeling in Bengal?" questioned JB Tamang, president of the union. 

http://www.millenniumpost.in/kolkata/tea-garden-workers-to-decide-fate-of-gta-chairman-relief-fund-493888