The Bengal labour department will approach the State Productivity Council and seek a report on the minimum wage for tea garden workers.

The decision was made at a meeting of the minimum wage committee here on Saturday. The panel was constituted by the Mamata Banerjee government in 2015 to recommend the minimum wage for the tea workers.

"Around 20 meetings of the committee have been held so far, but tea planters and trade unions could not reach a consensus on the minimum wage. That is why state labour minister Moloy Ghatak today (on Saturday) proposed that the matter be referred to the State Productivity Council,” said Ritabrata Banerjee, a Rajya Sabha member who was present at the meeting.

“The council will be asked to prepare a report on the minimum wage. Once the report is ready, further discussions would be held on the minimum wage,” added Banerjee, who is also the state president of the INTTUC, the trade union of the Trinamool Congress.

The State Productivity Council-West Bengal (SPC-WB) is an autonomous body that functions in the commerce and industry department. The chief minister is the president of the council, while the state labour minister is the working president. Achieving higher efficiency and productivity in all walks of life is one of the purposes of the council.

Sources in the tea industry said several submissions were made by the planters and the trade unions before the committee on the minimum wage.

The planters have pointed out that they spend money to provide fringe benefits to the workers and that it is a non-cash component of the wage, and advocated a certain minimum rate.

The trade unions of tea estate workers, on the other hand, underscored figures like the all-India consumer price index and some other factors, and demanded a higher minimum wage.