Above: Workers plucking tea leaves at a tea garden at Mongaldai on the outskirts of Guwahati (file picture). Photo: UNI
The plight of several abandoned tea plantation workers in Assam, West Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu are critical. They have been starving (with rations stopped), drinking waters from contaminated streams as water supplies has been cut, and is in dire straits.
On August 6, 2010, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court took note of the plight and directed the central government to carry out its statutory duties under the provisions of the Tea Act, 1953 [sections 16B, 16C, 16D, and 16E] within a period of six months. The bench was reacting to a petition filed by the International Union of Food & Agricultural Workers.
The petition concerned about 3 lakh workers in the sick and closed tea gardens in West Bengal, Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh and Uttaranchal. 240 workers died of starvation between March 2002 and February 2003. As the supply of rations and drinking water to the tea estates had been stopped, the workers were drinking water from the contaminated river streams. As the hospitals were closed, treatment was not possible. Provident Fund, Gratuity, and earned wages were not paid to the workers for years.
None of this was carried out, making it a ripe case for contempt of court.
On July 21 an apex court bench of Justices SA Bobde and L Nageswara Rao heard this contempt petition and directed the Centre to proceed against the erring tea companies, by calling upon the statutory authorities to issue notices to them, for recovery and payment of wages to the workmen who lost their livelihood due to closure of tea estates in Assam, West Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
A committee on plantation labour, appointed by the Centre, had found in 2003 that out of the 4819 registered plantations, 1367 were defaulting in the payment of workers’ dues, the largest default occurring in the plantations of Kerala, Assam and West Bengal.
The Centre has adequate powers under the Tea Act, 1953 to grant relief to the workers. However, the Tea Board continued to look at the plantation crisis purely on the marketing end and failed to fulfill its regulatory role as enshrined under the Tea Act, and did not make the estate managements accountable for the wage and provident fund defaults.
—India Legal Bureau