Five closed tea gardens to be reopend within two months

Kolkata, May 11 (UNI) Five closed tea gardens in West Bengal involving the fate of 12,000 workers will reopen in the next two months following intervention of Union Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh.

Announcing this here today, Mr Ramesh, who held a meeting with tea garden owners, unions and representatives of the State Government and Banks, said the process would start on May 17.

The move came at a time when the Ministry was awaiting the Cabinet approval for a rehabilitation package that it had prepared for the reopening of the 33 tea gardens, closed in Kerala, West Bengal and Asom.

'' I have met 12 tea garden owners, out of the 14 closed gardens in the state, whose response was positive. I will meet Chief Minister Buddhdeb Bhattacharjee to inform him about the progress of the matter, '' Mr Ramesh said on the sidelines of a press conference. Today's meeting was attended by Tea Board Chairman Basudeb Banerjee, the Jalpaiguri District Magistrate, tea garden owners, trade unions, including INTUC and CITU, and representatives of Bank of Baroda, United Bank of India and Allahdabad Bank.

The five gardens, to be reopened in May, June and July, are Surindernagar tea estate (172 hectare) in Jalpaiguri on May 17, Raimatong (491 hectare) and Kalchini(742 hectare) on July 19 and Samsing (918 hectare) and Bamondanga (310 hectare) on June 29.

The fate of 12,000 workers directly employed is linked with these gardens, the managements of which had piled up liabilities worth several hundred crores of rupees in provident fund and Bank dues. Many of these gardens had remained closed since 1999 when a crisis gripped the tea industry.

The 14 gardens are spread across the total land of 6500 hectare, he said.

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