Every tea worker in Assam lost Rs 2.70 lakh by new wage hike decision: Congress

GUWAHATI: The Assam Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) has taken strong exception to the Assam government’s announcement of increasing the daily wages of tea garden workers to Rs 205, which the party says is way below the electoral promise of wage increase to Rs 351 by BJP way back in 2016.
The APCC, in a statement on Saturday, said every tea worker lost Rs 2,70,000, if wages counted for five years, by a single order of the BJP government in Assam. Congress took a dig at the new Himanta Biswa Sarma government, saying that the hike is also less than the previous Sonowal government’s notification of 2021, which had added Rs 50 just before the 2021 assembly elections and increased daily wage to Rs 217.
AICC general secretary and party in-charge for Assam Jitendra Singh reminded the tea garden workers the “price they are paying” for voting BJP to power. Congress had “guaranteed” an increase up to Rs 365 in the daily wage of the tea workers within six hours of forming the government though the Grand Old Party put up a dismal show in the tea belt again.
“The tea workers (per person) are now having a loss of Rs 160 per day. If we calculate the loss of a tea worker, it will be approximately Rs 4,500 every month which means the monthly loss of a tea worker for voting for BJP is Rs 4,500 which would amount to an annual loss of approximately Rs 54,000 per tea worker. If we again calculate for five years, then it would come to a loss per tea worker of approximately Rs 2,70,000,” Singh said.
“To understand the dimension of loss per family, if we assume that four members of a family are engaged as tea workers, then the loss per family will be Rs 640 per day and the accumulated loss in five years will be approximately Rs 10,80,000,” he noted.
Congress alleged that it is a rather harsh gift by the BJP government meted out to the tea workers for one mistake of voting for BJP. “It is no doubt a rude shock for the simple tea workers to believe in the false promises of BJP and Congress feels that this is a lesson for others to learn as well,” said Bobbeeta Sharma of the media department of the APCC.
Tea garden workers in the Brahmaputra Valley were getting a daily wage of Rs 167, while the corresponding figure for the Barak Valley was Rs 145. Chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Friday held a meeting with representatives of Assam Chah Mazdoor Sangha (ACMS) and other tea bodies to discuss issues pertaining to wage fixation. Following the long pending demand of wage hike from the tea labourers unions, it was decided that with this hike, the tea workers in the Brahmaputra Valley would now get Rs 205 per day, whereas the tea workers of the Barak Valley would get Rs 183.
Even as ACMS, the biggest organization of the tea garden workers in the state, has welcomed the interim wage announced on Friday, general secretary of the organization and BJP MLA Rupesh Gowala told TOI that their demand for Rs 351 in future will persist. “We welcome the out-of-court settlement achieved at the initiative of the chief minister. Because no one could ascertain when the legal dispute would have ended,” said Gowala.
The previous BJP-led state government in February had hiked the daily wage of the tea garden workers to Rs 217 but the garden owners approached the Gauhati High Court soon after opposing the move and the matter was subjudice. Thus the workers could not reap the benefits of the hike.
Trade unions like the Citu was, however, critical of the interim hike in tea workers’ wage- third time since 2016 after BJP came to power in Assam.
“The tea garden owners have been deprived of fair wage, citing business loss by the owners from the very beginning. But we would like to make it clear that Rs 351.33 as daily wage of the tea labourers was decided based on the consumer price index (CPI) of 2017. Today, it would be about Rs 400 per day, considering the latest CPI,” said Citu’s Assam state general secretary Tapan Sarma.