Tea workers’ wage hike notified in poll-bound Assam

GUWAHATI

The government in poll-bound Assam has notified an interim increase of ₹30 in the minimum wage of tea plantation workers, who have traditionally been a major bulk voting force.

A March 7 gazette notification, signed by Labour Welfare Principal Secretary Gyanendra Dev Tripathi, said that the wage hike followed the February 26 recommendation of the Minimum Wages Advisory Board. The notification will take effect on April 1.

“Accordingly, the tea plantation workers in the tea gardens located in Brahmaputra Valley will be paid an interim minimum wage of ₹280 per day from the existing ₹250 per day, and the tea plantation workers in the tea gardens located in Barak Valley will be paid ₹258 per day from the existing ₹228 per day,” the notification read.

It further stated that the increase in interim minimum wages will be applicable to workers in small tea gardens across the two valleys, apart from the major tea estates. A small tea grower has a plantation on 100 acres of land or less.

Assam has more than 7 lakh tea workers across 803 major tea estates and over 60,000 small tea gardens. They are descendants of Adivasis that the British tea planters brought from central India almost 200 years ago.

Often referred to as “Tea Tribes”, these workers and their dependents, along with members of the “Ex-Tea Tribes” (Adivasis who are no longer associated with tea plantations) constitute 18-20% of the electorate. Their votes are crucial for political parties, especially across the tea-growing belts of eastern, northern, and southern Assam.

The wage hike, approved earlier by the State Cabinet headed by Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, is seen as a sop for plantation workers, who are believed to have been gravitating to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from Congress since the early 2010s.

However, some tea garden-based organisations have slammed the “meagre” hike as a “lollipop” from the BJP, which promised ahead of the 2016 Assembly polls to revise the minimum wage to ₹351.

These organisations include the All Adivasi Students’ Association of Assam and the Adivasi Youth-Students’ Association of Assam.

On the other hand, tea plantation owners said the wage hike would exert pressure on the industry, which is struggling with rising input (including labour) costs and facing a slump due to the war in West Asia. Iran and other West Asian countries are among the largest buyers of Assam tea.

“Discussions on wages of tea plantation workers are invariably focused on the cash component. The workers are also paid in kind, including free housing, electricity, and healthcare, which work out to a substantial amount,” a tea planter said, declining to be quoted.

The wage hike notification came more than a month after the State government amended the Assam Fixation of Ceiling on Land Holding Act to grant legal land rights to plantation workers in the labour lines of the estates. In February, the government distributed land pattas (ownership deeds) to 836 workers.

Approximately 3.5 families of tea plantation workers would be covered under the land settlement initiative.