Building a Wider
Horizon With Labour
The Congress in Assam on Sunday criticised the Union government's move to end the British-era system of providing ration to tea estate workers as part of their daily wages. During his visit to Assam last week, labour minister Bandaru Dattatreya said the Centre was planning to make transfer of wages to bank accounts of plantation workers mandatory. This would mean an end to the 170-year-old system of paying the workers in cash and kind. Under the Plantation Labour Act of 1951, a plantation worker's wage is divided into cash and kind comprising ration, healthcare and education services.
