A tripartite meeting on wage revision with interim relief, minimum wages and fixation of ration value for tea workers has been rescheduled. While the meeting was scheduled to be held at Uttarkanya here on 17 January, it will now be held on 19 January, officials have said.

State labour minister Moloy Ghatak is scheduled to attend the meeting after inaugurating a fair where he will distribute social schemes for working classes at Dagapur in Siliguri on 19 January, official said. Though officials of the state labour department are also set to discuss the three points, a proposal for interim relief will especially be the main agenda for discussions, it is learnt.

The state labour department has proposed that planters increase Rs 17.50 as interim relief for tea workers with effect from 1 January 2018. According to a senior state labour official, the workers’ claim for the traditional rationing system is legitimate.

The interim relief of Rs 17.50 was proposed for workers with effect from 1 January 2018 before implementation of the minimum wages, with effect from 1 April 2017. The interim relief will be adjusted if the minimum wages is executed in the future. The Rs 17.50 hike was proposed in the present Rs 132.50 a day that is given to the workers, and the same will hike the daily wage to Rs 150.

The value was ascertained as per the last tripartite agreement for wages signed for three years. In the last tripartite agreement, workers got an increment of Rs 17.50 for the first year. A section of the trade unions, especially belonging to the Trinamul Congress, reportedly want to accept the proposal, though the planters have sought time to give their final verdict.

On the other hand, another section of trade unions under the Joint Forum, has already announced that they would not accept the interim relief proposal and go on the warpath if the outcome of the meeting is not satisfactory.

They have decided to press both the planters and the state labour department on implementing the minimum wages and the fixation of money value of food grains the workers used to get from the garden management earlier. The ration was stopped after implementation of the National Food Security Act in tea plantations of north Bengal.