The Peshok Tea Estate was closed for a decade due to abandoning of the estate by the management. Now the tea laborers can lighten their hearts because the tea estate has been handed over to a new owner and will be resuming its work soon.
The garden, located 22 km from here, will be taken over by the management of the Dooteray and Kaley Valley tea estates. “The company has already paid an advance of about Rs 90 lakh and the garden is expected to start functioning by February 1,” a source said.
The garden’s earlier owner, the government-run Tea Trading Corporation of India (TTCI), had abandoned it in 1995. The new development follows the high court’s decision to liquidate all three TTCI-held gardens in the Darjeeling hills. Of the three, Vah Tukvar has already been taken over by Saycotta Tea Company Ltd and Putung is expected to have a new owner soon.
The new management at Peshok is expected to take over the garden without any liabilities, with the high court saying it will decide on the settlement of any previous dues. However, almost 50 percent of the tea bushes are reportedly in a very bad shape. The garden factory is also not functioning and initially green leaves are expected to be rolled in another garden.
The approximate plantation area at Peshok is 350 hectares and the total green leaf production is expected to be 4 lakh kg annually.
But the new management is unlikely to recruit all the 950 labourers who were working in the garden at the time of its closure. “Many of the workers have retired or left. It would not be viable to recruit all of them,” the source said.
Even the government, which was paying a monthly stipend of Rs 500 to the workers during the closed period, had refused to give the money to any family members in case a worker died. Thus surviving members will not have much claim to the job of deceased labourers, though a badli system (in which a labourer’s job is given to the next of kin on retirement) is in place in certain gardens.
Source > The Telegraph
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2 comments:
I stumbled on this article while surfing for some work.The garden has already opened and as far as i know it is functioning.This garden is where i was born and i know how hard was for all of us when it closed.I was in school that time and our family was dependent on this only job in the garden.I managed to do my college and now am working .It has been long walk from there.When the tea estates started to close like ours so many has suffered and management has done very little for the misery of our people.I dont know how long will go on ........People never know when this close again....still we all have learnt to survive ...i was lucky to have good education.......but there are many who's education will disrupted if ugly things pocks their head again......But i am pretty sure that people have learnt what to do if this garden closes again.
Was there recently. Very beautiful place. The new management has transformed the estate. It shows.
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