Guwahati, April 30: The Assam chapter of Save The Children, an international NGO working to promote children's rights, today demanded an amendment to Plantations Labour Act, 1951 and Assam's adaptation of the act, Tea Plantation Labour Rules, 1956, to provide better facilities to the children of tea labourers.

The Tea Plantation Labour Rules was implemented in Assam in 1956 through a notification to Parliament, using the provisions of Section 43 of the Plantations Labour Act, 1951, which allows a state to incorporate new rules, according to its requirements, with the consent of Parliament.

Assam, being a tea-plantation majority state, introduced rules to regulate the wages of tea garden workers, their duty hours and the amenities that the management is supposed to provide such as housing, drinking water, education, healthcare, childcare facilities like crèche, accident cover and protective equipment.

The organisation alleged that the Plantations Labour Act and Assam's rules have become obsolete and are obstructing other beneficial governmental schemes from reaching tea labourers.

"The labour act has become obsolete and it has missed out several points, which are necessary for the labourers in tea gardens in today's world, so it needs to be changed," Chittapriyo Sadhu, the general manager of the state programme, told reporters today.

Citing an example, Deba Prasad Sarma, the project officer of the organisation, said, "For instance, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which India is also a signatory, clearly specifies that the age of a child labour is below 18 years. However, the Plantation Labour Act mentions it to be below 14 years. So it's flouting the international laws."

"The need of the hour is a holistic act that includes all the segments such as health education and basic necessities," said Sadhu.

In a study conducted by the organisation, around 20 per cent of the total state's population, that is near 60 lakh people (including 24 lakh children), live in and around the 950 Tea Board of India-registered tea gardens in Assam and nearly one million workers and their families are directly dependent on this industry.

The report mentions that of the 3.4 per cent child labourers in Assam, 1.58 per cent work in tea gardens, 19 per cent of the children access pre-primary education in integrated child development service centre and nearly 50 per cent children do not attend schools regularly.