Measures taken to reopen 2 more tea gardens

Kolkata: In a bid to give respite to more than 10,000 workers, the Mamata Banerjee government has taken steps to reopen two more tea gardens in Dooars in North Bengal.

The government is eyeing to float tender to get investors to run the tea gardens those are closed for years. The investors will be taking the tea gardens in lease. This comes after the state government's success in initiating the process of re-opening of three gardens for which tenders were floated seeking bidders two and a half months ago.

According to the sources in the state Land and Land Reforms department, one of the two tea gardens is the Dheklapara tea garden in Alipurduar while the other one is at Banarhat in Jalpaiguri.

A senior official said: "All detailed study in this regard is complete. We are waiting just because of certain minor litigations. It is expected to get solved soon and the tender will be floated immediately."

There are some more tea gardens in the pipeline, but based on certain criterions these two are the ones for which tenders will be floated first, the official said adding that they are hopeful og reopening of the gardens at the earliest.

In July, tenders were floated for Madhu Tea Garden and Bandapani Tea Garden in Alipurduar and Surendranagar Tea Garden in Jalpaiguri that brought a respite for around 50,000 workers.

This comes when the Centre took no steps despite assuring all steps for the high revenue generating tea sector in Bengal that is the country's second highest tea producing state. There are total 284 registered tea gardens in the state and 276 out of these are running smoothly. More than 2.31 lakh workers are involved in it.

The lackadaisical attitude of the Centre in this regard is going to leave a deep impact in the Assembly elections as the then Union Industry and Commerce minister NirmalaSitharaman personally visited some tea gardens in 2015 and even assured of taking over closed tea gardens.