Labour minister intervenes in tea gardens bonus dispute
Labour Minister Moloy Ghatak has intervened in the ongoing dispute over the 20 per cent bonus demand by tea workers in the Hills.
The office of the Munda Kothi tea garden, 5 km from Sonada town in Darjeeling, was completely destroyed in a late night fire on Saturday. Officials there maintained that all important files were lost in the incident.
The Munda Kothi tea garden is registered under the Darjeeling Organic Tea Estate Private Limited and is owned by the Bansal group which owns a majority of the gardens in the hills.
“We learnt about the fire from the villagers and garden workers and tried to inform the fire brigade, but could not contact them. The villagers tried to douse the flames, but the fire was intense and the garden office could not be saved,” said Puran Rai, the assistant manager of the tea garden.
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The office was a wooden structure with a concrete ground floor. All materials, including the hard disks and computers kept in the office, were gutted. “Important documents such as those related to the provident fund of workers, planning documents of the garden, money and pay slips were lost. The computers have been totally damaged and are beyond repair,” Mr Rai said.
In 2004 too, after the garden was taken over by the Bansal group, the factory was damaged in a fire that broke out there as a result of a short circuit and had to be reconstructed.
The Munda Kothi tea garden, with a plantation area of 298.75 hectares, employs around 949 people, including staff and sub-staff. Police sources said that they have received a complaint about the fire from the garden management and have started enquiry.
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