Building a Wider
Horizon With Labour
From Nangdala More on NH 31D, near Birpara in Alipurduar, there are five tea gardens on the way to the Bhutan border. Four of them - Demdima, Jaybirpara, Bandhapani and Dekhlapara - are closed, wiping out 5,000 permanent and an identical number of temporary job opportunities. Most of the able¬ bodied have left for other States in search of jobs. The women, children and the elderly subsist by collecting stones, used in construction, from the dry beds of scores of seasonal rivers flowing down from the Bhutan hills. Welcome to the stressed tea industry of West Bengal, spread over roughly four districts in North Bengal.
