Tea Tribe bodies move Governor with demands

By our Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, Sept 12: As many as ten Tea Tribe organizations huddled together and moved Assam Governor Banwarilal Purohit at Raj Bhawan on Tuesday and pressed for their various demands jointly.

Teamed up under the banner of the Joint Action Committee of Tea Tribes Adivasi, Assam, they handed over a memorandum to the Governor in support of their demands for protection of their rights in terms of reservation in various jobs in government departments, civic bodies and other such public organizations. They raised their demand for a separate commission to study their status of life and livelihood and recommend steps for the uplift of their condition, review of the Plantation Labour Act, 1951, declaration of floods and erosion as a tiol problem, social security, hike in daily wages of tea workers, exemption from pruning work imposed on women, immediate halt to the killing of Assamese people along the galand border, and permanent solution to land disputes of Assam with its neighbouring States, etc.

Talking to newsmen later, chief convener of the committee Israil nda said: “We appeal to Dispur not to cut the allocation of funds for Tea Tribes in the annual budget. Tea industry is the only industry in Asia that has a large workforce associated. Tea workers should be given ration. We’re scared of the policy adopted by the government at the Centre on the issue of Hindu Bangladeshis.”