Building a Wider
Horizon With Labour
Over the past few years the Indian tea industry is experiencing a crisis that is caused by a multitude of factors both global and local causing rampant incidents of closures and abandonment in many tea gardens in the states of Kerala and West Bengal. According to the 51st Annual Report 2004-05 of Tea Board of India, a total of 118 tea gardens were reportedly closed between the years 2000-2005 that had affected 68,442 workers. This working paper documents the status of closures and abandonment in the tea estates of West Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu and explores possible alternatives that have been proposed and addressed to such situations of closures and abandonment.
