Trinamul meets Div Commissioner over tea issue

 

COOCH BEHAR, Sept. 10: When Trinamul Congress chief Miss Mamata Bannerjee is busy in meeting with the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh in New Delhi, the members of the party's North Bengal Core Committee (NBCC) met the Divisional Commissioner Mr BL Meena at Jalpaiguri today. The issue is similar – problems of closed tea gardens.

 

NBCC chairman Mr Gautam Deb said they had submitted a memorandum to the Jalpaiguri DC demanding measures to reopen fourteen closed tea gardens. In that memorandum they mentioned that the jobless workers were dieing of starvation. Many are suffering from financial crisis. Lack of drinking water, power and food is making their lives miserable.  In the memorandum they had urged the DC to arrange food for the jobless workers, inclusion of their names in the BPL list and providing of jobs under 100-day job guarantee scheme. They allowed the DC a period upto 31 August for implementation of the demands, Mr Deb said.

 

Today, Mr Deb and senior leaders like Mr Rabindra Nath Ghosh, Mr Pratul Chakraborty, Mr Chandan Bhaumik, Mr Kalyan Chakraborty, Mr Mridul Mukherjee, Mr Santosh Mukherjee, Mr Khageswar Ray and Mr Dipak Shil met the DC and asked about the progress of their demands. Mr Meena reportedly told them that he conveyed the demands to the authorities concerned and took several measures with about Rs 8-crore that may benefit about 15,000 tea workers, Mr Deb said. Supply of water and power was resumed in some areas. Health check-up facility and midday meal scheme were also launched in many areas, the DC told them. The Trinamul leaders appealed the DC to take up the issue with top priority.

 

NBCC chairman Mr Gautam Deb said Miss Bannerjee requested the PM to take an initiative to reopen the closed tea gardens. He also said that a high-power NABARD team is to visit the tea gardens of Dooars to identify the problems the workers are suffering from. It may be mentioned here that Miss Bannerjee too visited some tea gardens recently.

 

NBCC member and the party's Cooch Behar district unit president Mr Rabindra Nath Ghosh said they would organise a sit-in of tea workers at Siliguri on 22-24 September. On 1 October another sit-in programme will be held at the foot of Gandhiji's statue and in front of Tea Board office in Kolkata. If the government fails to take any positive action they will go to Delhi with the jobless tea workers for a sit-in in front of the office of the Prime Minister, Mr Ghosh said. []