Building a Wider
Horizon With Labour
Residents of closed and ailing tea estates have to pay Rs 2 per kg for rice and wheat though the state government claimed that each one in the plantations would be given the food grains at 40 paise per kg under the National Food Security Act. The residents of open gardens are getting food grains at 40 paise per kg. Food minister Jyotipriyo Mallick today admitted the gap and said he would look into the matter. “Workers in open tea gardens are getting food grains at the rate of 40 paise per kilo but in the closed and sick plantations, the unemployed workers, who are living amid abject poverty, are getting the same at Rs 2 per kg. It has happened because of a technical gap which, we believe, the state has failed to understand,” an official of the state food and supplies department said on condition of anonymity.
