Trouble brews for tea industry: MNREGS ‘triggers’ absenteeism

The complaint has come from D P Maheswari,president of the Tea Association of India (TAI),who,during the TAI’s 43rd annual general meeting in Kolkata last Friday,described it as a serious matter that requires immediate government intervention.

“We are grateful to the weather god for His merciful bounty. I am hopeful,at this rate,we would be able attain a crop of around 990 million kgs in 2011,and may even reach the magic figure of 1000 million kgs. But absenteeism, thanks to misuse of MNREGS,infrastructural problems and increased land revenue rates have caused serious concern,” Maheswari said.

Maheswari particularly pointed at “rampant misuse” of MNREGS and said this had caused an “abnormal spurt” in absenteeism among the permanent workers in many tea estates. “Rampant misuse of the Mahatma Gandhi NREGS has been identified as a major cause for this abnormal spurt in absenteeism among the permanent workers in the estates. Examples are aplenty where the garden workers have been lured to share the daily wage under NREGS with the authorities issuing job permits for practically no work at all,” Maheswari said.

Maheswari also pointed out that absenteeism had reached an alarming 40 per cent mark in some areas. “The rate of absenteeism in workforce never falls below 20 per cent on an average. In the tea-producing regions of Assam and West Bengal,it has now even touched an alarmingly high level of 30-40 per cent,and that too during the peak plucking season,” he said,as Paban Singh Ghatowar,Union Minister of State for Development of Northeastern Region,was seated on the dais.

He suggested a social audit on MNREGS in order to plug the “unpardonable” drainage. “We solicit a social audit on the performance of NREGS,which will reveal the unpardonable drainage of the National exchequer. Tea gardens are at the losing end,” Maheswari said.