Tea workers’ wage hike notified in poll-bound Assam

Assam announces ₹30 wage hike for tea workers ahead of elections, following land ownership deed distribution and recommendations from the Minimum Wages Advisory Board.

GUWAHATI

The government in poll-bound Assam has notified an interim increase of ₹30 in the minimum wage of tea plantation workers, who have traditionally been a major bulk voting force.

A March 7 gazette notification, signed by Labour Welfare Principal Secretary Gyanendra Dev Tripathi, said that the wage hike followed the February 26 recommendation of the Minimum Wages Advisory Board. The notification will take effect on April 1.

“Accordingly, the tea plantation workers in the tea gardens located in Brahmaputra Valley will be paid an interim minimum wage of ₹280 per day from the existing ₹250 per day, and the tea plantation workers in the tea gardens located in Barak Valley will be paid ₹258 per day from the existing ₹228 per day,” the notification read.

It further stated that the increase in interim minimum wages will be applicable to workers in small tea gardens across the two valleys, apart from the major tea estates. A small tea grower has a plantation on 100 acres of land or less.

Assam has more than 7 lakh tea workers across 803 major tea estates and over 60,000 small tea gardens. They are descendants of Adivasis that the British tea planters brought from central India almost 200 years ago.