ATCL modernises tea gardens with IT integration and development projects

Guwahati, Dec 11: Assam Tea Corporation Limited (ATCL) introduced BlueEye technology in its gardens for authentic recording of attendance and wages disbursal, in a bid to check 'ghost' workers and arrest financial leakages.

The corporation also plans to introduce the technology for pruning and plucking in the next phase.

Mismanagement in the gardens had led to continuous downslide of the corporation, which once had 14 sprawling tea gardens in the State.

"Using technology, we are now trying to bring down the leakages and enhance worker efficiency. Monitoring has improved. Payments are also being digitized, and the number of 'ghost' workers had also come down," an official said.

Private gardens, which are using the IT tools for attendance and wage disbursal, have also recorded reduction of expenditure- which earlier used to go to bogus workers or was misappropriated, ensuring optimum utilization of resources and effective time management.

"We are trying to bring more activities of the tea gar- dens into IT platforms so that there is minimum human interface. This will check manipulation, which was one of the reasons for downfall of the company. Ninety percent of the payments are being done through DBT now’, the official said.

Of the 14 gardens, six gardens of ATCL have been leased out so far and two sold off by PF authorities. The corporation plans to sell two other gardens in Sribhumi district. Private parties have shown interest to take over one more gar- den - Amlukie.

Sources said, around Rs 75 lakh are required to run the remaining gardens of AT- DCL every week. Through the technological intervention, the losses have been reduced by 30 per cent, but a huge investment will be required if the government wants to bring about a turn- around.

"The bushes are 75-100 years old and the gardens are in dire need of replantation. Factories are also old. It will require huge investment. We have started a nursery in Sycotta tea estate of Jorhat to start with," the official said.

Meanwhile, ATCL has spared around 450 bighas of land at Gohpur's Bholaguri tea estate for setting up the Swahid Kanaklata Barua State University.

Around 100 bighas of land at Cinnamara tea estate in Jorhat have been handed over to ATDCL for setting up a tourism retreat under the Swadesh Darshan 2.0 scheme of the Central government. The Swadesh Darshan proposal aims at integrating the tea heritage of Assam with its institutions, museums, and historic tea bungalows to create one of its kind tea trails, tea estate experience, tea tasting, tea retreat and amenities infused with flavors of tea. A revenue sharing model will be worked out with the ATCL.

The Tocklai division of Cinnamara will also be handed over to Tea Research Association for R&D activities in collaboration with private parties.

The government has also moved a proposal to give VRS to a section of executives of the corporation.

Yesterday, the State government told the Supreme Court that the Rs 70 crore outstanding dues of ATCL garden workers will be disbursed in two installments in 2025-26 and 26-27 financial years, days after the apex court mulled selling the assets of the company to recover the dues.