Jorhat, July 20: Dispur is proposing to open bank accounts for students in tea gardens, to give scholarships and other government benefits. A plan to promote football and archery in tea estates is also in the pipeline.
Assam minister of state (independent charge ) for tea tribes welfare, labour and employment, power, revenue and disaster management Pallab Lochan Das in a meeting held in Guwahati on Monday evening with representatives of major tea growers' associations of the state, said the government had planned a series of measures for welfare of the tea workers.
Apart from top officials from the labour and tea tribes welfare departments, senior officials from several banks also attended the meeting.
A senior official of a leading tea planters' group, who attended the meeting, told The Telegraph today that the government proposed to pay financial assistance for students of tea estates under various schemes through bank accounts to make the system "fast, efficient and transparent".
Das said school and college students of tea workers are entitled to various scholarships under different categories from the state government through the tea tribes welfare department. Transferring the funds through banks could make the process more streamlined.
The official said the minister sought the views of the tea industry for the proposed initiative, as full co-operation of the gardens will be needed to implement the plan.
He said the tea gardens were working with the labour department in the districts to open bank accounts for tea workers to pay their daily wages though banks according to the directive of the former Tarun Gogoi government.
On February 19 this year, the Borbheta tea estate of Tocklai Tea Research Institute, on the outskirts here, became the first garden in Assam to pay wages to its workers through bank accounts.
The objective was to save time and to address the increasing risk of goons looting the money while it was transported from banks. This also aimed to inculcate the habit of savings among workers and help them to avail of financial assistance under government schemes and the insurance cover introduced under Jandhan Yojana.
The official said the minister had told them that the government had plans to promote football and archery. These sports are popular among the youths of the tea tribes, who were originally inhabitants of Odisha, Bihar and Jharkhand, and were brought to Assam by the British over 170 years ago.
The minister said the government was thinking of opening zonal training sports centres and organising inter-district tournaments among gardens, with chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal showing keen interest in the proposal.
The official said the minister also sought cooperation to make the tea industry child-labour free and called for proper implementation of the Plantations Labour Act, 1951.
The minister said the excise department was taking steps to create awareness in tea gardens to tackle the problem of largescale alcoholism prevailing among the workers with the help of the managements, the official said.
There are 787 organised and registered tea estates in Assam, according to government records.
Das, a former Congress MLA who was in the Himanta Biswa Sarma camp in the last Tarun Gogoi-led government, joined the BJP after Sarma switched sides. He was also the general secretary of the Assam Tea Tribes Students' Association.
There are 787 organised and registered tea estates in Assam, according to government records.
About five lakh permanent workers and two lakh temporary labourers are employed in the estates, with the total plantation area estimated at 3,12,210 hectares in the organised sector.