Centre’s smart city may eat into British era Doon tea gardens

The Uttarakhand government has decided to develop smart city on tea estates near IMA and Shimla by-pass, but it the Centre which will take a final call on the fate of the British legacy. 

Many local political outfits, environmentalists and social workers are opposing the state’s plan to convert the tea estates into a “jungle of concrete”. 

Chief Minister Harish Rawat feels the concept of smart city is the brainchild of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “The old Dehradun city is choking. There is no space for developing this ambitious project of the NDA government. We need land, as one can’t make castles in the air. If the Opposition BJP thinks that apart from this tea estate, there is sufficient land availability for this project, they should come forward with suggestions,” Rawat said.  

OP Gupta, accountant of Arcadia tea estate said: “I have been working here for five decades. The production of green tea here was 3.5 lakh kg every season in the 1960s and 1970s. The processing unit used to work for three shifts in a day. There used to be a long queue of trucks, waiting for their turn to upload the commodity.  The production started deteriorating post 1980s. Now, the production is around 25, 000 kg a season.”

He said there are approximately 120 workers on pay-roll of the company. He said most workers still live in century-old houses having tin roof. Some have started working in Selaqui-based factories, while others are working as security guards.  

The fear of uncertainty is visible on the faces of tea estate workers. A labourer working at a tea estate said: “It is ridiculous that some senior officers are complaining of the lack of skilled labour. The Britishers provided  our great great grandfather with perennial job. But our own politicians are trying to make us homeless and jobless to make way for a smart city.”