Welfare nod for tea labour

Calcutta, April 27: A cabinet sub-committee today cleared a proposal to extend panchayat benefits to tea garden workers in the Dooars.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee has appointed a panel headed by home secretary Basudeb Banerjee to suggest steps on how benefits like the Indira Awas Yojana and 100 days’ work under national rural job scheme NREGA can be given to the workers.

“The tribal and Hindi-speaking workers in the tea gardens don’t get electricity, housing, drinking water and other facilities. The tea gardens were established on leased land. Our government has decided to extend to them the benefits of the panchayats. To make this possible, the government will take possession of some of the land for the workers,” Mamata said at Writers’ today.

The committee will submit its report in seven days, she added.

The announcement comes days after the violence in the Dooars that had prompted Mamata to send panchayat minister Subrata Mukherjee to the region to find a “long-term” solution to the problems plaguing the adivasis, 90 per cent of whom are garden workers.

“The previous Left Front government had brought the tea gardens under the jurisdiction of the gram panchayats. Those living in the workers’ lines of the tea gardens enjoy voting rights but they cannot be provided any facility because they do not possess the land they live on,” Mukherjee had said.

Officials said the tea gardens were set up on land leased to the owners and workers did not own the land on which they live. Once they get possession rights of the land, they can tap benefits like getting dwellings under the Indira Awas Yojana.

On his return to Calcutta, Mukherjee recommended to the chief minister that steps be taken to ensure that the tea workers, most of whom are tribals, get possession of the land they live on, officials said.

Mamata said today that the government would also hold talks with the garden owners. “We are not going to disturb the owners over the land leased to them. But the labourers have rights under the labour law and we will provide it to them.”

Mukherjee said the move would help over nine lakh tribals. “The committee members will hold talks with the garden owners. There are legal issues involved which would have to be settled.”(TT)