Workers start cooperative to revive tea garden

[Tea Plantation Workers - Related News]

In a unique initiative, the workers of Bandapani Tea Garden, which has remained closed since July 2013, have formed a cooperative society and obtained government registration in a bid to run the garden themselves. The cooperative received government registration on April 26, 2017. Located in Alipurduar district, the State government had taken over the Bandapani Tea Garden in October 2014. It still has about 1,200 workers on its rolls. "Even after the State government took over, the condition of the workers did not improve. So we formed the cooperative to run the garden ourselves," Ashok Toppo, the vice-chairman of the Bundapani Tea and Allied Plantation Workers’ Cooperative Society told The Hindu.