Political turmoil over closed tea estate

The tussle among CPM leaders here over the present situation in Raipur Tea Estate came to the fore today.

At a news meet today, Jiten Das, the former MP of Jalpaiguri and secretary of the Jalpaiguri sadar zonal committee of the party, contradicted Minati Sen’s claim that residents of the estate — out of operation since July 5 — have been starving and suffering from malaria. Sen is the sitting CPM MP of Jalpaiguri.

“There is scarcity of food in the closed estate and residents are suffering from malnutrition. I have decided to ask the administration to ensure better implementation of the Sampurna Gramin Rozgar Yojana (SGRY), the food-for-work scheme,” Sen said.

“It is incorrect to say that there is starvation in the garden,” Das refuted. “The gram panchayat and panchayat samiti concerned have implemented the SGRY in the tea estate since September, 2003 — even when the garden was open. Funds and foodgrain have been distributed regularly under the scheme.”

The CPM zonal secretary presented a detail on the disbursement of funds and foodgrain. According to him, the Patkata village panchayat, under which the garden falls, disbursed Rs 1,64,424 under the SGRY scheme till January 15, 2004. After taking over the scheme from Patkata panchayat, the sadar panchayat samiti has so far disbursed Rs 6,34,127 and 2,206.75 quintals of rice among residents of the estate.

However, when the garden closed operation on July 5 this year, the administration declared that it would launch the same scheme in the garden in September.

The dispute did not end there.

“We are aware that the MP had been to the garden. But she should have first informed the local representatives and talked to them during the visit. Then only she would have got the real picture of the garden,” Das added.

“I am not a fool to inform everybody about my visit,” said Sen. “I paid a surprise visit to the estate and found residents suffering from malaria. I am planning to distribute mosquito nets to them.”

Sabhapati of sadar panchayat samiti Binod Toppo, Patkata gram panchayat pradhan Anita Minz and CPM member of the gram panchayat of the garden Jaba Marandi were all present at the meet but they chose to remain tight-lipped. “A food-for-work scheme is now on in the garden,” was all that Marandi offered after the conference.

Source> The Telegraph