Tea workers’ plight comes up before apex court

The UPA Government may have announced a loan waiver package for about 40 million farmers in the Union Budget...

The UPA Government may have announced a loan waiver package for about 40 million farmers in the Union Budget to deal with the worst-ever agrarian crisis, but the tea industry — reeling under a similar crisis with thousands of workers committing suicides — still waits for a helping hand from the Government.

On Friday, referring to a PIL filed in 2006 by the International Union of Food, Agriculture, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco, Plantation and Allied Workers’ Association (IUF), senior advocate Colin Gonsalves informed the Supreme Court that the Centre and some tea-growing states had failed to respond to notices issued by it over alleged starvation deaths by workers of tea gardens illegally abandoned by companies.

The court was told that only Assam, Karnataka, Uttarakhand, West Bengal and UPASI Tea Research Foundation and Tea Board had filed their reply to the notices issued in August 2006. A few other states have not yet responded to the notices.

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Highlighting the Government’s apathy towards 60,000 workers who were rendered jobless due to the closure of most of the tea gardens in several tea-growing states, Gonsalves informed the apex court that despite having announced a Rs 4,000-crore package for the revival of tea industry, including payment of dues and wages to the workers for the past eight years, the money had not reached any worker.

Not interested in running the gardens anymore, the owners simply pretended and colluded with the state governments to take the benefit of the monetary package that was rolled out by the Centre, alleged the advocate.

As a result of the non-payment of earned wages, provident fund and statutory dues such as gratuity, closure and retrenchment compensation, the situation of starvation, destitution and despair had spread in the tea gardens of the country, the petition has stated.

On hearing the submissions, a Bench comprising Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan and Justice R V Raveendran suggested making tea companies parties in the petition.

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“If you want management to be taken over from them, then why not make tea companies as respondents,” the Bench suggested, asking the Centre and the states concerned to file their response by April when it agreed to take up the matter for further directions.