A group of ministers (GoM) formed by chief minister Mamata Banerjee has decided to extend a series of benefits in the areas of food, health, power and education for the employees of not only closed or abandoned tea gardens but also of the stressed ones.
The GoM has decided to allocate a Rs 100 crore Tea Garden Employees’ Welfare Fund (formed in early 2015) as corpus for the benefit of the ailing tea garden workers.
The GoM headed by finance and industries minister Dr Amit Mitra had an hourlong meeting with the officials of education, food, health, PHE and power departments on Friday to discuss the strategy and modalities.
The other members of GoM also include power minister Manish Gupta, rural development minister Subrata Mukherjee, education minister Partha Chatterjee, north Bengal development minister Gautam Deb, labour minister Moloy Ghatak and agriculture minister Purnendu Bose.
It was decided that a task force will be formed under the district magistrates of Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar to oversee the implementation of the relief measures on a day-to-day basis. The state government has set a deadline of seven days to supply power directly to the workers houses in all the 234 Dooars gardens.
Besides free power, the state is organising a free kitchen in over 30 stressed gardens in Dooars.