Dima Tea Estate (Alipurduar), April 8: More than 400 workers of Dima Tea Estate in Kalchini today gheraoed the garden manager for over two hours, demanding their dues.

The agitation began at 7am soon after Ramasis Sinha entered the office. “The workers switched off the lights and fan and used filthy language to address me,” Sinha said. After the gherao was lifted around 10, the workers demonstrated till 2pm.

The management of Suroj Govind Estate Private Limited, which had bought the garden, had agreed to pay 14 months’ wages to the workers when the estate reopened in February 2003. It had paid Rs 1.89 crore, half of the total dues, and said the rest would be paid in 32 equal installments along with the current wages. The first one was to be paid today.

The garden has 1,200 workers who wanted the dues in four instalments.

On Friday, a tripartite meeting in the assistant labour commissioner’s office here yielded no result. The management told the labour department that the first instalment of dues would be paid on April 8.

“The garden, which is under litigation, does not belong to us. Still we are paying the wages and ration in time. If the workers do not join work from tomorrow, we have to think otherwise,” Sinha said.

Secretary of the Intuc-run National Union of Plantation Workers Pravat Mukherjee reiterated the demand of paying the dues in four installments.