Guwahati, Oct. 12: The Assam Tea Tribes Students’ Association has threatened Dispur with dire consequences if the government-owned Assam Tea Corporation Ltd fails to pay Puja bonus at the promised rate of 12 per cent.

The threat comes at a time when the bonus issue has almost been settled in the state without any problem, unlike in previous years.

Most of the tea companies have already paid bonus and that, too, at least one per cent more than last year. Some companies are paying bonus even at the rate of 20 per cent — the highest rate of bonus.

In sharp contrast to chief minister Tarun Gogoi’s announcement that the ATCL would pay bonus at the rate of 12 per cent, the managing director of the company, Harish Sonowal, yesterday asked managers of the 15 tea gardens owned by it to pay Puja bonus at the rate of 8.33 per cent, the lowest rate of bonus stipulated by the Payment of Bonus Act, 1965.

At the inauguration of karam puja, one of the major festivals of the tea tribes, at Mariani in Jorhat district a few days back, Gogoi had announced that the ATCL would pay 12 per cent bonus this year.

“We will not accept anything below 12 per cent. Gogoi, it seems, has no control over the bureaucrats working under him. How can a managing director defy a chief minister who only a few days back announced a 12 per cent bonus at a public meeting?” the general secretary of the students’ association, Pallab Lochan Das, said.

“When all the other tea companies have hiked bonus rates by at least one percentage point, how could the ATCL deny even last year’s rate of 14 per cent?” he asked.

The ATCL paid bonus at the rate of 12 per cent in 2005 and 14 per cent in 2006. He said the association would meet tea community leaders of the ATCL gardens soon and chalk out strategies to fight for a minimum of 12 per cent bonus. Sadan Kurmi, a tea community leader of Cinnamara tea estate said the workers were expecting at least 15 per cent bonus this year.

While Tata Tea has paid 18 per cent bonus, McLeod Russell and Goodricke have paid 17 per cent bonus this year.