Assam Tea Workers To Be Included In Rural Job Guarantee Scheme

Other decisions taken by the cabinet on Wednesday included use of funds received under the 15th Finance Commission for renovation of schools and parks in villages

In a major decision that will benefit its largest vote bank, Assam's ruling BJP will include tea garden workers within MGNREGA, or the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. This is to help them in the winter, when jobs are scarce and they are forced to become migrant workers. On Wednesday, during the the Assam cabinet's weekly meeting, it was decided that tea plantation workers would be offered jobs building roads, digging community ponds or planting trees. The state has over 10 lakh tea garden workers in the organised sector alone. They work on the around 850 big estates spread across the tea manufacturing belt along the Brahmaputra Valley in the Upper Assam district, and certain parts of the Barak Valley.