Tea garden residents demand ownership of parya patta land

YAWAN GURUNG, EOI, MIRIK, AUGUST 18, 2023 : The Joint Forum of tea garden labourers representing Darjeeling Terai Plantation Labour Union, Communist Party of Revolutionary Marxists, Hamro Party, Gorkha National Liberation Front, BJP and the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha on Thursday submitted a memorandum to the Block Development Officer, Mirik, demanding lease of land to tea garden workers as much they were using. 

The West Bengal Government has issued a notification for giving five decimal of land in parya patta to the residents of tea gardens. 

There is already a widespread protest in the hills against this order. They do not want lease, but ownership of land. In a news conference, the Joint Forum accused the State Government of conspiring to take away from tea garden residents land they had owned by years of toil by giving only five decimals on lease. 

They wanted the government to give ownership of the land they had been using for years. A few days ago, State Government officials visiting the Okayti tea garden to survey the land had been chased by tea garden people. 

The Joint Forum said the Land Reforms Department should survey the land only if they provided party patta for the entire land owned by the tea garden people. The Joint Forum accused the Trinamool Congress and Bharatiya Gorkha Prajanantrik Morcha of not speaking out against the scheme of providing five decimals on lease.