GUWAHATI, May 23 ? State Minister for Labour and Employment, Rameswar Dhanowar today informed that Assam Government?s efforts to amend the Assam Plantation Labour Rules were yet to get the go-head from the Union Home Ministry. The Ministry said since the Act in this context, Plantation Labour Act, 1951, was a Central Act, to amend its provisions by any state government required permission from the Home Ministry. Talking to newsmen here today, Sri Dhanowar said the present Government was yet to take any initiative to either rectify or enforce the recommendation on minimum wages for tea workers made by the expert committee formed by the previous government.
Meanwhile, the tea workers in the State are being paid daily wages as per the rate fixed on the basis of a bi-partite agreement between the management and workers union represented by Assam Chah Mazdoor Sangha (ACMS) which will continue till the need of this year. As per the bi-partite agreement, the tea workers of Brahmaputra Valley get Rs 45.05 per day while the rate for Barak Valley tea workers is about Rs 40 per day. However, the management of the garden would have to pay Rs 600 as arrear till the end of the last year, if the new rate of wage is implemented with retrospective effect. However, the State Government was yet to notify this new rate of minimum wage for tea workers in the gazette under the Minimum Wage Act. The Labour Minister informed that gazette notification would be issued by the end of this year. It may be mentioned that the expert committee formed by the previous government had recommended average Rs 49 per day as wage for tea workers. However, the expert committee recommendation was left to gather dust even as workers and management settled the wage rate through a bi-partite agreement.
The Labour Minister today informed that almost all the small tea gardens in the State were yet to be registered with the Labour Department and the major hurdle in this regard was non-settlement of land of small tea gardens. The Minister said that the matter was brought to the notice of the Chief Minister, adding that the Labour Department was ready to settle the land allotment to small tea gardens at the district level by simplifying the present system. Sri Dhanowar informed that although tea gardens with plantation area within the range of 30 bighas to 150 bighas were to be considered as small tea gardens, many tea gardens having plantation area spanning over 200 bighas were showing themselves as small tea gardens. The Labour Department had served notices to 25 such tea gardens while eight of them had been penalised through imposition of fine. However, the Minister regretted that the law provisions were not strict enough to hand out exemplary punishment in such cases.