Land allotment to tea garden workers will end 200-year insecurity: ACMS

Guwahati, Dec 2: For more than 200 r=years, tea garden workers have been in Assam as landless people. There has always been a sense of insecurity despite the fact that test workers are now part of Assamese society.

The recent government move to provide land to tea garden workers will solve many problems faced by the community, said senior Assam Chah Mazdoor Sangha (ACMS) leader Bhadra Rajwar.

Talking to The Assam Tribune, Rajwar said that the ACMS is very happy with the Government's move. He said that land is part of a person's identity. Now. finally, after 200 years, the workers will have land of their own.

Rajwer pointed out that earlier tea garden workers could not take loans from banks, as they did not have land to mortgage. The garden workers were forced to take loans from private lenders at very high interest rates. But this problem has been permanently solved.

The second major issue was that the garden workers could not take bail if anyone was arrested. There have been instances where persons were languishing in jail even after courts granted bail. For taking bail, the bailer needs to have land in his or her name and as tea workers did not have land, they could not take bail for anyone.

The third issue was that the tea workers were not allowed to do any additional construction work in the labour line houses. They were not even allowed to construct a shade or renovate their houses by the tea garden owners. But this problem will now be permanently solved.

Replying to a question whether the garden owners will allow land patta in the labour lines, Rajwar said that the scheme will first be implemented in the gardens of the Assam Tea Corporation.

He said that as most of the gardens do not have their own land and are operating by taking land on lease from the Government, they should not have any problem in allotting land patta in the labour line land.

He pointed out that the Government would not take the plantation land, factory and even clubs. So there should not be a problem in patta allotment to tea workers, he added.

The tea plantation in Assam started after the State came under the control of the British. The majority of the al regions of Chota Nagpur, Santhal Pargana, Ranchi, Palamu, Singhhhum, Hazaribagh, and Manbhurn. They included various ethnic groups such as the Munda, Kharía, Oraon, Gond, Santhal, and Oriya.

A good number of workers died from disease during the journey to Assam, and those who tried to escape were often killer for breaking their contracts. Over time, this heterogeneous community of tea workers developed a shared identity as the 'Tea Garden Labour Community’.