The October floods have plunged Alipurduar’s Subhasini tea garden into an acute financial crisis.

The garden management fears they may be forced to suspend operations unless the government intervenes urgently.

Located around 38km from Alipurduar town in Kalchini, Subhasini employs 1,257 workers. According to estate sources, the devastating flood on the intervening night of October 4 and 5 inundated a large part of the garden after the swelling Torsha river changed its course and entered the estate.

Workers from the Nadi Line were evacuated to the garden school premises as rising waters posed danger. A massive 92 hectares of plantation area of primarily young tea bushes got submerged.

Experts have assessed that the entire stretch is now buried under heavy silt and is unfit for replantation, representing a catastrophic one-fourth loss of the estate’s plantation area in a single day.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee, during a meeting at Nilpara to assess flood damage, visited Subhasini tea estate soon after the floods.