Darjeeling: It is gloomy around the winding alleys of the Kurseong Hills on the way to Rohini in West Bengal. The Durga Puja has already been a low-key affair and not a single decorative light dangles from any house this Diwali. As the evening chill sets in, a solitary bulb casts a dark shadow on the gates of Long View Tea Garden. For 350 workers and their families of this closed-down tea garden, the shadow only darkens.
Workers of Long View have been picketing outside the closed gates of this tea garden for nearly three weeks now. They claim the owners have been holding their salaries, bonuses and Provident Fund amounts including arrears of around Rs 18 crore. Even intervention of the courts has not brought any respite. Workers claim since 2013, no money has been deposited in their Provident Fund accounts and no one from the owners to the state government has bothered to visit the tea garden to hear the plea of the workers.
"We have been conducting a relay hunger strike for the past 21 days, but the owners seem to take no cognisance. There was a court order, which forced the owners to sit across the table for discussions. Despite 19 meetings where the owners agreed to pay our dues, once they left the meeting, they simply went back on their promises and assurances.
"In 2019, there were around 1,250 workers in Long View. Now only 350 permanent workers are left. On October 16, the owners suddenly released five out of the agreed upon ten per cent bonus amount and then became incommunicado,” claimed Geeta Devi Rawat, one of the agitating workers of Long View Tea Garden.
The protesting workers claimed that Rs 16.2 crores are due in terms of Provident Fund deposits since 2013. Added to this are four months of unpaid salaries, enhanced components of salaries and a bonus, which is around Rs two crore. They are demanding that the owners, with government intervention, deposit this amount at the earliest and regularise pay before resuming work in the garden. The workers are also demanding the minimum wage formula, which has been agreed upon in accordance with the tripartite agreement and court orders, be implemented.
"We spent the Durga Puja in darkness. Diwali will also be a dark one. The owners are now putting pressure on us to end the hunger strike. From the silence of the government, it seems they are also in agreement with the owners. We don't trust the owners anymore. If our demands are not met, we will go a fast unto death after Diwali," said Vikas Chhetri, another protesting worker of Long View Tea Garden.
For Reshmi Rai Tamang, a worker of Long View, it is a sense of dejection. "No one is there to look after us or take our case seriously. We want the government, NGOs and other stakeholders to come here and see our situation. Since our backs are on the wall, we will not go back on our justified demand of salary regularisation and payment of bonus," she says.
North Bengal Joint Labour Commissioner Shyamal Das told ETV Bharat that a meeting on tea garden workers has been scheduled on November 6 and the matter of bonus payment will be raised during the parleys.
Till then, the once bustling Madhuban Haat or Garidhura bazaar, which used to be filled with shoppers ahead of the annual festival of lights, is wearing a deserted look. Long View waits to join the club of its neighbouring tea gardens Laxmi or Chamta, and hopes that the closed dates of the garden reopen.
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