Tea Garden Workers in Tripura's Manu Valley Fear Starvation amid Corona Lockdown

Speaking to this correspondent of Inside Northeast, Kurmi said, “Despite the government's assurance of providing monetary assistance for the tea garden workers and asking the business heads to assist their workers, in tea gardens, we see no hope. Till date no ration has reached us and whenever we try to communicate with the authorities, they refuse to help us.”

Umesh Munda, who is also a tea garden worker in the same garden said, “At this time of crisis, the tea garden authorities should come forward and assure help. On the contrary, the authorities always skip to pay heed to our day-to-day hurdles”.

Only recently, Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb, in a video message asked the tea garden owners to assist the workers as much as possible. “If the tea garden owners fail to help their owners monetarily, they must assure the government-sponsored schemes to be implanted in their gardens”, the Chief Minister told the owners but the ground situation in Manu Valley tea garden seems completely opposite.

Most of the workers are fearing starvation with the rations in their households set to end in a day or two. A major section of the tea garden workers have no access to the Public Distribution System (PDS), which makes them completely dependent on the rations being supplied by the employers. But, as soon as the lockdown was announced supply of ration was stopped. When the authorities were asked to speak about the issue, they seemed reluctant and maintained a conspicuous silence.

“Most of us are not entitled to the government-sponsored PDS system. Due to some technical issues our Aadhar cards cannot get linked due to which, we do not get a monthly ration”, Mund told media.

According to the workers, the authorities had cleared their stand that no one would be given free ration as there were no activities in the gardens. Being one of the top-notch gardens of the Laxmi Tea group known as one of the finest tea producers of Tripura, such activities from the part of the authorities had raised many eyebrows. The workers also urged the government to ensure rations to their garden.