Assam Assembly Passes Landmark Law Granting Land Rights to 3 Lakh Tea Worker Families

Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI: The passage of 'The Assam Fixation of Ceiling of Land Holding (Amendment) Act, 2025' in the Assam Assembly today paved the way for providing land pattas to around three lakh tea workers' families where they have been residing in tea garden labour lines. This is a historic step for the Assam tea gardens that have completed 200 years.

Regarding the Act, Chief Minister Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma said, "With this amendment, the lands in tea garden labour lines will be government land. We've asked the district commissioners concerned to conduct a survey of the lands under the occupation of tea garden workers in labour lines. After the survey, the government will provide them pattas of the land under their occupation. We've also prepared certain rules to prevent them from selling these lands to the people of other communities. After getting land pattas, beneficiaries cannot sell these lands to anyone else for the first 20 years. After this 20-year period, if anyone wants to sell such lands, he can sell them to a person of the tea community of the same tea garden. Of course, they can mortgage these lands to banks. We want to protect tea tribes' lands forever the way we have protected tribal belts and blocks in the state."

The Chief Minister said, "This Act has freed tea garden labourers from slavery to an extent. Over the years, they had been under the apprehension of being thrown out from their quarters in labour lines. This threat perception bound them to do what their garden owners wanted. The labourers of an independent country should get all rights of citizens."

The Chief Minister said, "If need be, we'll provide them money for erecting houses, or we may construct clusters of their houses. For these lands, we won't pay even a single penny to tea garden owners as compensation. Had they wanted, the then Congress government in the state could have provided lands to tea garden workers when they had enacted the Assam Fixation of Ceiling of Land Holding Act, 1956. The government provided the surplus ceiling lands to the tea garden owners as 'ancillary property'. Our government has done a lot for the socio-economic development of tea workers. The tea gardens in Assam had schools only up to the primary level until 2014. After we came to power, we erected 100 model high schools in tea gardens. One hundred more such schools are in the pipeline. We're paying wage compensation to pregnant and lactating women workers in tea gardens for a certain period. We've already reserved three seats for Tea Tribe students in each medical school of the state. Now, we're going to raise their quota up to four. We're also going to reserve class I and II government jobs for Tea Tribe candidates. The daily wage of tea labourers was Rs 130 until 2014. After the BJP came to power, their daily is Rs 250 now. The tea community had many MLAs and ministers. They never thought for the welfare of tea workers."

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