The Bengal labour department has decided to provide Rs 1,500 each a month to workers of Raipur tea estate which was abandoned by the management.
Management officials had left the estate near here in September 2018. The garden with 481 workers was declared abandoned by the state government in January last year.
“We have received approval to provide money to workers under the FAWLOI (Financial Assistance to Workers of Locked Out Industries) scheme. As of now, 243 workers will receive the amounts. There are certain errors in the application forms of the remaining workers which need to be rectified. Once the corrections are made, they, too, will get Rs 1,500 per month,” said Partha Biswas, the deputy labour commissioner of Jalpaiguri.
He said the workers would be paid the assistance with retrospective effect from January, 2018. “From Tuesday onwards, the assistance of 13 months (that is, since January 2019), will be transferred to the bank accounts of the workers,” he said.