Darjeeling shut down after tea garden worker commits suicide

A day's strike was observed in the Darjeeling hills yesterday following the suicide committed by one of the tea garden workers in Chongtong Tea Estate. Baluram Dewan (62, belonging to the Nepalese community) was found hanging from the tea shed with a suicidal note. The note had blamed the tea garden owner, Mr. Ajit Agrawal for abandoning the tea garden and bring misfortunes to the poor tea garden workers. It has become a trend for the tea garden owners to abandon tea gardens without proper and legitimate papers if they face some difficulty dealing in managing the tea workers. Most of the tea workers frown for their low paid wages while the owners are generating huge revenues. None of the tea garden owners are from the Darjeeling hills and are controlled from Calcutta (Kolkata), some 700 km away from Darjeeling. They rarely visit the tea gardens and the whole management is handed over to the manager's shoulder. Its really sad that such a sad and biased management trend is reveberating in the Darjeeling tea gardens.

Leaving aside the Goodricke Group Ltd., Jayshree and some authentic companies, most of the tea gardens are owned by a single individual who are just there to make profits and does not believe in the welfare of the tea garden workers.