Final Draft of the memorandum on starvation death and other relevant issues
Posted by Labels: apeal, Assam, barak valley, memorandum, minimum wage, peoples activism, right to work, union, working class
ASOM MOJURI SRAMEEK UNION
Regd
No. 2287
Ref: Date:
To,
The
Deputy Commissioner
Sub
– Memorandum
Sir,
We,
on behalf of Assam Mojuri Srameek Union, would like to highlight the following
points for favour of your perusal and needful action.
(1) Sir, when the negotiation for enhancement of current
wages of tea-workers has been started at the behest of the Labour Commissioner
with our union as one of the representatives of the workers, we are dismayed by
the facts revealed by our own union source and the local vernacular media about
the starvation deaths in the tea-gardens of Bhuvon Valley Tea Company in
Lakhipur Sub-Division of Cachar District due to the complete failure of PDS and
other facilities to be guaranteed to workers of the closed garden as per the
Supreme Court guideline and the prevailing chronic abject malnutrition among
tea-workers’ family members in all the tea-gardens in general. It is learnt
that the owner of the said tea-estate just abandoned the tea-garden in the
month of October `11 without formally declaring the closure and keeping the
store-keeper turned Asst. Manager as the care-taker of the property. It is also
learnt that prior to the closure of the garden, workers were neither paid their
cash daily wages nor provided their entitlements of ration as wage-in-kinds
since long. Workers were also not provided with other facilities like
healthcare etc since long. This is an extreme case of gross negligence and
violation of rules within the overall prevailing situations of poor quality and
less than the entitled quantity of ration provisions and poor healthcare
facilities for the workers in most of the tea-gardens under the
garden-management who are recalcitrant towards any change for the better. This
PDS is important on two different counts – firstly, it is the part of the
worker’s wage as wage-in-kinds, and secondly, it is also an overall societal
issue as the public money is involved. Though we appreciate that you have
already initiated three different inquiries on PDS, medical facility and the
starvation death, arrear payment etc, under Labour inspector, District
Proggramme Manager, NRHM and SDO(Civil) Lakhipur respectively, we are of the
opinion that these measures are not adequate enough to address the bigger
dismal picture, lackadaisical performance and to ensure effective result. Contd
to pag 2
(2)
To
substantiate our claim, we would like to elucidate this particular case of
Bhuban Valley Tea Company, and these two issues of PDS and medical facilities
in general point by point.
(A) In this particular case of Bhuvon Valley Tea Company,
the management did not deposit the PF of the workers to the PF-fund since long.
In an earlier occasion, the district administration issued an arrest warrant
against the two businessmen based in Kolkata, but they went scot-free on the
ground that they are not the real owners. Till date, the question of who the
real owner is, remained obscure to all the stake holders. The workers stated
that so far as their knowledge goes, the owner is Kolkata based businessman
Ghanashyam Sarda. But the store-keeper turned Asst Manager-in-charge is not
sure about who the real owner is. The real owner is playing a game of hide and
seeks with the law of the land, and it is surprising to note that the
law-enforcing authority is in utter disarray. Thus the owner has dodged their
obligation to deposit the workers PF to the PF-fund. It is surprising to note
that the district administration has failed to nab the person against whom the license
for the company was issued. The data obtained through RTI-petition also reveals
that many tea gardens authorities of Barak
Valley
(B) A long time has already been elapsed since when the
garden management has not been providing the ration and the medical facilities
to the workers. Though the management has acted ultra-vires by suspending the
PDS and medical facilities under NRHM, the inspection/surveillance procedure
under PDS and NRHM has utterly failed to warn them and bring them to book. These
gross violations have gone unnoticed to the appropriate authorities that are
responsible to ensure proper implementation. This gross failure of monitoring
and surveillance, and the failure to compel the management to abide by the
stipulated rules have caused the loss of nine lives of tea workers who embraced
the consequence of starvation situation. This arrangement of NRHM is in
addition to the obligations of the planters to provide medical facilities
mentioned in the Chapter III, article 10 of the plantation labour act, 1951.
This provision under the labour act is also being rampantly violated in most of
the tea-gardens.
Moreover,
in this particular case along with similar cases in many other tea-gardens, they attract the
provisions of sub-clause (c) & (d) of clause 16B and
Contd.
to page 3
(3)
sub-clause
(b) of clause 16E of Tea Act for default in the payment of wages, provident
fund etc, and for managing the industry in such a manner highly detrimental
to tea industry and/or public interest, and in the event of the closure of the
garden for more than 3(three) months respectively.
(C)This is the example of an extreme case that has come to the focus due
to the loss of lives. But this demands us to pay our attention to the dismal
general state of affairs prevailing beneath the surface in majority of the
tea-gardens. In almost all the tea-gardens, the quality and quantity of ration
commodities provided to the workers are deplorable. Under the existing system
(as the stay order has been issued by the honourable High Court against the new
system to be introduced by the state Government to treat the manager as ration
dealer), it is the tea industry which has taken upon itself the task of
public distribution for its labourers. The allotments of rice and wheat are
made in favour of tea industry associations centrally by the directorate of
food and civil supplies, and thereafter, the Food Corporation of India (FCI)
makes district wise allocation based on the government allotments.
(D)The agent of the association of the planters receive the allotted
quantity of food grains entitled for the workers directly from the FCI on PDS
prices and then issued to the workers by the garden authority who subsidized it
further to charge 54 paisa per Kg from the workers. The difference of PDS price
and the price acquired from the workers are treated as the workers’ wage in
kind. But in actual practice, this wage-in-kinds is claimed to be much higher than
actual,- and thus the workers are deprived in two-pronged manipulating
technique. However, as the public money is involved in the tea-garden PDS over
and above the technique of artificially lowering the real wage of workers, the
failure of the inspection/surveillance needs to be thoroughly investigated.
(E) Under the PPP-model of NRHM, the tea-garden owners who
have reached to an agreement with the Government represented by respective
Deputy Commissioner, the owner is receiving Rs.15 lakhs per annum to provide
the medical facilities to the workers. Under the Plantation Labour Act, the
planters are duty-bound to provide the medical facilities on their own. The
tea-garden managements who are receiving additional amount of money earmarked
against the NRHM project are not properly utilizing this amount and are
resorting to unethical means to gobble up the money. Here also, it is a public
issue of lack of surveillance and inspection by the appropriate authority.
Contd.
to page 4
(4)
The
skewed policy decisions, severe deprivation and discrimination meted out to the
workers by their employers and the failure of the administrative machinery to
compel the planters to abide by the existing laws of the land have an immediate
bearing on the overall community health and nutrition. The case study conducted
by G. K. Medhi, N. C. Hazarika and J. Mahanta of Regional Medical Research
Centre, N. E region (ICMR), Dibrugarh ,
Assam
Basing
on this particular case of starvation death and the prevailing general
situation stated above, we put forward the following demands –
(1) A committee comprising of the officers from respective
departments, representatives from civil society organisations and all unions,
and experts from various fields with the Deputy Commissioner as Chairman should
be constituted to investigate the particular case of Bhuban Valley Tea Estate
as well as the general performance of PDS and the medical facilities under NRHM
in all the tea-estates.
(2) The provisions of Plantation labour act 1951, Assam
Tea Plantation Provident Fund Scheme Act 1955 and the Tea-act as mentioned
above should be considered meticulously wherever applicable and as the case may
be to punish the law-breaking licensees of the tea-industries.
(3) Legal proceedings should be drawn against the Bhubon
Valley Tea Company on the basis of the provisions of the acts as mentioned in
the serial no. 2 above to nab the culprits and bring them to book. All arrear
payable to the workers should be disbursed forthwith and adequte compensation
to the families of the deceased should be ensured.
(4) Full ration should be provided to all the workers
family at BPL price to the sick, closed and the tea-estates like Bhuban Valley
(5) Periodic medical health camps and medical check-up
should be organized in tea-garden areas.
Contd. to page 5
(5)
In addition to that, we also demand –
(1) The wage of the tea-workers should be enhanced either
to the level of NREGA workers’ wage or to the West Bengal
tea-workers’ wage with a VDA component in the wage-structure. Moreover, the
malpractice of enhancement of task(Nirikh) with the every increment of wage to
offset the wage-increase and to lower the real wage is to be stopped, and the
differential task depending on the number of rounds during various seasons of
an year must be fixed with maximum of 18 Kg/day.
(2) All the tea-worker families should be brought under
BPL category.
Yours faithfully
&
Cachar District Committee
Copy to – (1) Honourable Cabinet Minister, Ministry of
Commerce, GoI, New Delhi , India (2) Honourable Cabinet Minister, Ministry
of Labour, GoI, New Delhi , India (3) Honourable Cabinet Minister, Ministry
of Labour,GoA, Dispur , Assam Dispur , Assam Dispur , Assam
