Silchar bodies stir over surplus TE land

Silchar, Jan 29: Members of the district committee of Akhil Bharatiya Cha Mazdoor Sangha (Asom), CITU, Cachar and All India Kishan Sabha (AIKS), Cachar staged a protest demonstration in front of the statue of Khudiram Bose, Park road in Silchar on Monday. There are 54 tea gardens in the district of Cachar and most of them are having ceiling surplus land kept and disposed of on completion of all legal processes. Unfortutely, the surplus land has not been allotted to the landless or retrenched garden workers. In this regard, they have  staged protest.

 Later, they submitted a memorandum addressed to the Chief Minister of Assam through the Deputy Commissioner of Cachar. Addressing the gathering before the statue of Khudiram Bose, Samiran Acharjee alleged that BJP government is not at all concerned about the future of these poor tea garden workers. “It seems a conspiracy regarding the land issue has been hatched. Government is trying to pin us down and subdue our spirits. But we will not stop until we reach our goal. We will discuss, hold meetings and launch protest movements if needed. This is certainly not a democratic government. Poor and underprivileged people, people belonging to the minority communities and women have always been exploited.”

 “Assam Government is neglecting them and allotment of land or patta is a distant dream now. On the contrary, government is trying to evict them. They are being threatened every now and then. This is injustice and unfair. We demand allotment of minimum 5 bighas of land to the unemployed tea garden youths for growing tea for maintence of livelihood. BJP government is not an ideal one since it ignores the poor, ordiry, underprivileged and downtrodden people of this country,” Samiran Acharjee added to say.

 Chunilal Bhattacharjee, president of Akhil Bharatiya Cha Mazdoor Sangha (Asom), CITU, Cachar, Pradip Choudhury, secretary of AIKS and Gopal Bhumij also put forth their demands on the behalf of the hapless and helpless tea garden workers and farmers. They said that ceiling surplus land or pattas should be allotted to these workers at the earliest. It has been stated in the 2 page long memorandum that the magement files cases on the interl reward of settlement department and even harasses the cultivators by filing false cases on the occupant of the ceiling surplus land. They have demanded that the cultivators should get genuine price for their crops, middleman purchasers should not be encouraged, irrigation facilities are provided to the cultivators, and patta over the ceiling surplus should be given to the occupants. Around 3000 numbers of individual petitions have been submitted to the Settlement Officer, Cachar, for immediate action.