Garden Work for tea tourists at Happy Valley

Darjeeling, March 19: Globetrotting, high-end tourists will be soon seen helping workers manufacture Darjeeling tea at Happy Valley Tea Garden under instructions from young guides speaking English, German and French.

The garden, set up in 1854, is rolling out an unconventional tea tourism package in which guests will prune and pluck tea, before being treated to a sumptuous lunch at the new lounge coming up beside the garden factory.

The lunch, too, will be special, because each item will have tealeaves in one form or the other.

The $1m project is expected to be launched in three months, said Sanjay Bansal, the proprietor of Rithik Investment Pvt. Ltd, which bought the garden last year. “I personally believe that just opening two rooms for people at the factory bungalow only amounts to paying-guest tourism and not tea tourism,” he said.

Bansal added that the workers’ children (not minors) would be taught English, German and French before they are recruited as guides. “A museum is also being built in the century-old factory, which we are renovating.”

Happy Valley is one of the oldest and most famous gardens in Darjeeling and the museum houses a lot of gems from the past.

“We will, for example, demonstrate the use of the piston prime mover machine, which generates electricity and was built in 1850,” said the garden owner.

The top floor of the factory will have a reception area and changing rooms for tourists to get into workers’ uniform. The building is designed in a way that will allow them to walk around the factory and see the manufacturing process.

While high-end tourists can book a conducted tour for the entire day, people on a tighter budget can visit the garden on two-hour shifts between 8am and 5pm. The price of neither package has been decided.

There will no accommodation facility at the garden.

Happy Valley Tea Estate fume over proposed motor stand

The union and management of a garden here have come together for a common cause.

The Darjeeling district administration’s move to set up a new motor stand at Happy Valley tea estate has been opposed both by the workers and the owners of the garden.

The stand would mean a reduction in plantation size, which the new owners of the garden and the trade unions feel cannot be afforded at a time when the estate is fighting for survival.

“We cleared around Rs 60 lakh in dues after we took over the garden. The factory needs renovation for which we have to invest almost a crore. If we lose plantation land at this point of time, no one can save the estate,” said Anil Bansal, the general manager of Hrithik Investment Pvt. Ltd, which took over the estate on March 29, 2007. The estate was under a workers’ committee from 2002- 2007.

The garden has an area of 162 hectares of which 124 hectares is plantation land. The motor stand is expected to take up 5-6 hectares.

Even the unions are up in arms against the move. “If the situation so requires, the entire workforce will take leave for two to three days to stop the construction of the motor stand,” said S.K. Gurung, the president of the GNLF-affiliated Himalayan Plantation Workers’ Union (garden unit).

The workers maintain that their fortune has only just started looking up — for five years they did not get their statutory benefits (something that is not possible under a workers’ committee) — and a reduction in plantation size could put a damper on the revival spree. “We have already lost 20-25 acres to landslides and this is one of the smallest gardens in the hills. Further loss could have serious implications for the 1,500 people residing in the estate,” said Pravin Gurung, the secretary of the union.

The management believes any construction — likely to take place at an altitude at par with the road and higher than the rest of the garden — would destroy a large area, as the soil will have to be thrown downhill into the estate.

“Last year, we produced about 60,000kg of made tea but this year because of the unpredictable weather, we have been able to produce only 18,000 kg of made tea so far. At the most, the figure will rise to 35,000kg at the end of the year,” said Sudan Gurung, the manager of the garden.

The garden, which employs 335 workers, has one of the highest land-labour ratio. As against the desired 1:1 (for every acre one worker), the current ratio stands at 1:3. Reduction in plantation size might cause an imbalance in the ratio further.

Darjeeling district magistrate Rajesh Pandey had earlier told The Telegraph that nothing had been finalised about Happy Valley other than a survey. Though the municipal engineering department had been told to prepare a proposal for the government, Pandey had hinted that other plots might also be considered.

Source: The Telegraph