Traffic on the Saarc Road that connects Bhutan with Jalpaiguri came to a halt for around six hours on Saturday when residents of a tea estate owned by an undertaking of the government of India staged a blockade for the immediate payment of their wages.
Hundreds of workers of New Dooars, a tea estate owned by Andrew Yule & Company Limited, braved the rains and started the road blockade in front of the garden’s gate in the Banarhat block of the Jalpaiguri district around 8.30am.
“We are yet to receive eight weeks’ wages and are at our wit’s end. We don’t know how to run our families. Today, we raised the blockade to draw the attention of the administration and the company to our plight,” said Sonali Manki Munda, a woman worker who joined the protest.
Vehicles stopped plying along Saarc Road, which connects Samtse, the headquarters of the Samtse district of Bhutan, with NH31 at Banarhat because of the blockade.
Although the rain continued, the workers didn’t budge from their demand and continued the blockade. The garden has around 1,000.
“The manager and other officials told us that they would be able to pay only a week’s wages and that too, on next Tuesday. This morning, some of us met the manager again but he failed to give us any assurance,” said a worker.
After a couple of hours, the demonstrators allowed the container trucks carrying essential items to Bhutan to pass the spot of the blockade.
Dhupguri subdivisional officer Pushpa Lepcha, Banarhat block development officer and police officers reached the spot. They spoke to the agitators and persuaded them to withdraw the blockade around 2pm.
“A tripartite meeting has been convened on July 2 to discuss the pending wages and some other issues of the garden,” said Lepcha.
The Trinamool Congress said the delay in the payment of the wages in the New Dooars garden betrayed the apathetic attitude of the central government towards tea garden workers. “The Narendra Modi government has done nothing for the tea industry. Now, even workers of central government undertakings are not receiving their wages in due time,” said Chandan Bhowmik, a TMC leader.
