Two tea estates in Alipurduar district, employing around 3,200 workers in all, will reopen on Sunday after remaining closed for around 11 months.

The decision was made at a six-hour tripartite meeting at the office of the additional labour commissioner in Siliguri on Saturday.

With this, the state labour department has managed to reopen three tea gardens in a short time, the third being the Longview tea estate in Kurseong subdivision of Darjeeling district. Last Wednesday, work resumed in Longview that was closed for a month.

According to sources in the department, managerial representatives of the tea company that owns Raimatang and Kalchini tea estates had abandoned both the gardens on October 26, 2019.

Since then, both the gardens were closed and the workers rendered jobless.

“We have been consistently trying to facilitate the reopening of both these gardens. On Saturday, a tripartite meeting was held in my office that continued for around six hours. It is good that the meeting yielded results. From Sunday, the gardens will reopen. At the meeting, decisions have also been made regarding payment of dues to the workers,” said Md. Rizwan, the additional labour commissioner of Siliguri.

The Raimatang tea estates in Alipurduar.

Tea trade union leaders present at the meeting said on Sunday, the management will disburse the due wages of 16 days (of October 2019) among the workers and will also pay a month’s salary to the staff and sub-staff.

“It has also been decided that workers of both gardens will receive bonus at the rate of 12 per cent and it would be disbursed by October 17. The management will also clear a portion of the due gratuity by the first week of next month,” said a trade union leader.

On November 3, another round of tripartite talks would be held to review the state of affairs in the gardens and discuss other pending issues, he added.

The decision has bolstered the confidence of Trinamul’s tea trade union leaders.

“The state government has proved its sincerity towards the tea industry. On one hand welfare schemes have been extended to the tea population, on the other hand the government has drawn up a housing scheme for tea workers. Now, the government is focusing on reopening the closed tea gardens, and after Saturday’s decision, three gardens will reopen in the span of one week. We will highlight these developments in the tea belt, particularly because the central government is sitting idle and has not done anything for the tea industry of Bengal so far,” said Mohan Sharma, president, Cha Bagan Trinamul Congress Mazdoor Union.