AGARTALA:
The Tripura government has launched ‘Mukhya Mantri Cha Sramik Kalyan Prokolpo’ scheme for the welfare of tea garden workers and development of tea industry in the state.
Announcing the same on March 9, information and cultural affairs minister Sushanta Chowdhury said that scheme aims to uplift the tea industry that was neglected by the then Communist Party of India (Marxist) CPI (M) government.
He said that the tea garden workers who have been neglected by the then CPIM government will get every facility under the scheme.
“The government has approved Rs 85 crore for the benefit of seven thousand families of tea garden workers. Under the scheme land will be provided for homes, defunct tea gardens in the state will be handed over to them through cooperatives, and every family will receive ration cards,” he said.
The minister said that large section children of the tea garden workers were deprived of quality education and so the government will provide them the education up to higher secondary level under the scheme.
“We will provide them social pension, maternal and child health care assistance, health insurance as per their eligibility, supportive appliance to handicapped persons and we will bring them under PMAY scheme”, the minister added.
As for the wages of the workers, minister of industry Manoj Kanti Deb informed that the government has increased the wages of the tea garden workers from Rs 105 to Rs 136 and in coming days the government is planning to increase the wages by Rs 176.
Notably, Tripura has 58 operational gardens, of which 42 are privately owned, three are run by Tripura Tea Development Corporation and 13 are operated under cooperative societies. Most of these tea estates produced orthodox tea till 2000 but moved on to CTC after the millennium.