One-month deadline for tea gardens to reopen

Kochi, Aug 5 (UNI) Declaring that the Centre was at the ''end of its patience'', Union Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh has warned concerned authorities of the 22 closed tea gardens in West Bengal and Kerala to reopen within a month or face take over by the government.

Addressing a press conference here last night, Mr Ramesh said under Section 16(E) of the Tea Act of 1953, the Centre could take over any tea garden without investigation, if it was lying closed for more than three months, for the purpose of finding another owner.

''I am coming to the end of my patience with the closed tea gardens in West Bengal and Kerala. Though Section 16(E) of the Tea Act has not been invoked in the past 54 years, we are determined to invoke it if the tea gardens do not reopen within a month,'' he said.

While for West Bengal's 13 closed tea gardens, the one-month deadline started on July 30, for Kerala's nine closed tea estates, it started on August four, he said.

The minister said a Joint Committee of Central and State governments had already been set up in West Bengal to evaluate offers for the closed tea gardens and a similar panel would be shortly set up for Kerala also.

Mr Ramesh said the situation was ''more complicated'' in West Bengal, where only one closed tea garden had reopened while 13 remained closed. On the other hand, in Kerala, eight of the 17 closed tea gardens had reopened in the past three months.

''In West Bengal, the owners do not seem to be very serious about reopening the gardens,'' he said.

Stating that the Centre had already announced a relief package for the reopening of the closed tea gardens, he said no more relief would be provided.

Talking of the closed tea factories, he said there were 14 closed tea factories in Kerala, of which one had reopened yesterday and another one was slated to reopen in January-February next year.

The minister said the one-month deadline would not apply to the tea factories, as the first priority was to reopen the tea gardens as these accounted for the maximum number of workers in the tea industry. The factories would come in only at a later stage of value addition.

UNI