Tag: tea garden

Tea-Tourism in Bengal to get a boost

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Tea Tourism in West Bengal is going to get a boost as the State Government may take steps for easing the processes related to it.

The West Bengal government’s group of ministers recently met the the members of the Consultative Committee of Plantation Association (CCPA) to discuss the health of the tea industry and how to revive it. This will also help to set up Tea Tourism industry to the State.

The Sate Finance Minister Dr Amit Mitra also attended the meeting, where the issue of tea tourism and use of land for alternate crops were also discussed.

There are 377 tea estates in north Bengal employing 2.64 lakh workers. Of these, 87 tea estates are in Darjeeling, 188 in Jalpaiguri and 102 in Terai. The total tea production of these estates is about 330 million kg per year. The State Government may also look at providing some financial assistance to the tea garden workers from the Rs 100 crore corpus for which the Assembly has passed the West Bengal Tea Plantations Employees Welfare Fund, 2015.

Incidentally, West Bengal Chief Minister Ms Mamata Banerjee has instructed earlier to give special focus to Tea Tourism.

Rs 100 Cr for welfare of tea garden workers

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The Mamata Banerjee government will set up a Rs 100 crore corpus fund for the welfare of the 2.62 lakh tea plantation workers in 283 registered tea estates in Bengal.

Labour minister Moloy Ghatak tabled the West Bengal Tea Plantation Employees’ Welfare Fund Bill, 2015, which was passed in assembly on Thursday .

The minister pointed out that many tea estates not belonging to corporate houses or established tea families often violate provisions of the Plantation Labour Act, 1951, that provides for free housing, medical facilities, primary education, water supply , electricity and food grains to workers.

Smaller tea gardens deny these rights, saying they don’t have the money for it. This is why an inter-ministerial committee set up by the Centre and governments of Bengal and Assam recommended that the state share some of the statutory social security measures.

Accordingly , the government will sanction soft loans from the corpus fund to defaulting employers to help them discharge their statutory responsibilities. Children of workers will be given scholarships to study in technical institutes.The corpus may also be used to grant incentives to investors who come forward to take over sick or closed tea gardens.

WB Govt sets up six ration shops outside closed tea gardens

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The State Food Department has set up six ration shops outside the gates of five closed tea gardens, so that the tea garden workers, along with the people living in the fringe areas of those five closed tea gardens, can get the benefit of procuring ration from those shops.

State Food Minister Jyotipriya Mullick said in the Assembly lobby that these ration shops have been set up by the Food Department, each at a cost of Rs 6.24 lakh. The minister said that ration shops have been set up outside Red Bank, Surendranagar, Dekhlapara, Dalmore and Kathalguritea tea gardens, with two being set up outside Kathalguri.

The Minister alleged that during the Left Front tenure, tea garden managers were given charge of ration shops and “after we came to power we found out that these managers most of the time failed to distribute ration evenly among the closed tea garden workers, which led to starvation.”

The Minister further said that his department has chosen some efficient self-help groups to run these ration shops and that these groups are now effectively running the ration shops outside these closed tea gardens.

At present, 1.03 lakh workers, their family members and those living adjacent to these closed tea gardens are the beneficiaries of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s special package of rice at Rs 2 per kg. He said Rs 1,080 crore is being spent on the special package and a total of 3.28 lakh people are the beneficiaries of this package.