Guwahati: Nearly 60 lakh tea plantation workers with their families living in both Brahmaputra and Barak valleys of Assam had never found such an initiative from the government after independence.
Presently both the Bhartiya Janata Party-led governments in New Delhi and Dispur have shown sincere commitments for the tea families with various schemes of developments.
Under the same spirit of helping the people in around 750 tea gardens in Assam, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman arrived in the city on 6 February 2021 to distribute the third tranche of financial assistance to tea area beneficiaries in presence of State chief
minister Sarbananda Sonowal and State finance, health, education, etc minister Himanta Biswa Sarma with others.
Nearly 7.5 lakh tea families received financial benefits of rupees 3000 each which was transferred directly to their bank accounts under Chah Bagicha Dhan Puraskar Mela scheme. Under it, the government in Dispur during the year 2017- 18 provided rupees 2500 to 6,33,411 bank account holders and rupees 2500 to 7,15,979 accounts in
2018-19.
Speaking on the occasion, Ms Sitharaman commented that Assam is known for its tea across the world and while people start their mornings with a cup of Assam brew, the labourers who grow tea plants were neglected for a long time making them live a disadvantaged life. She asserted that since Prime Minister Narendra Modi led government assumed power in New Delhi seven years back, various measures for upliftment of the tea community was taken.
Crediting the bank officials and government employees for completing the task of the opening of more than eight lakh bank accounts in tea garden areas after the demonization drive, Ms Sitharaman observed that due to the inclusion of tea people in formal banking systems it has enabled the direct transfer of benefits to their accounts. “PM Modi prefers using new technology for the benefit of common people while implementing various schemes and so the concept of DBT was introduced. Due to the initiative, middlemen have been totally eliminated and thus all benefits reach beneficiaries,” she commented.
An ambitious scheme titled Ayushman Bharat was launched to provide rupees five lakh to every family per year for enabling underprivileged people like tea community to avail paperless medical treatments, she stated that the State government continues working wholeheartedly for equal developments to all sections in the society. She informed that the Centre allocated rupees 1000 crore in the Union Budget 2021-22 for the welfare of tea workers especially the women and children in Assam and West Bengal acting on the plea of Dispur and as a commitment of the Union government towards the tea estate people. ATMs, mobile banking etc facilities are available in tea garden areas as in metro cities, remarked Ms Sitharaman.
Addressing the huge gathering, Sonowal termed the day as historic and referred to PM Modi’s motto of sabka sath, sabka vikash, sabka viswas as guiding principle for Dispur to work for equal development to everyone. He stated that Dispur has provided free textbook, free uniform and free admission to tea children and urged the guardians to motivate their young people to strive for acquiring proper education.
Sarma in his speech promised to raise the minimum wage of tea labourers in the State within a few days. He also revealed various plans to provide free breakfasts at tea garden schools, the introduction of 10% reservation in tea garden neighbouring colleges for their
students apart from the already implemented 10% reservation in medical and engineering colleges. In presence of Union food processing minister Rameshwar Teli, State minister Sanjay Kishan, Parliamentarians Kamakhya Prasad Tasa & Pallab Lochan Das, legislators Kripanath Malla & Nabanita Handique, top government and bank officials, Sarma also mentioned about government spendings of rupees 1,400 crores for developing roads and
instituting higher schools inside tea garden areas.
