AGARTALA, Dec 29 - The staff and labourers of Manu Valley tea estate in Tripura North district�s Kailashahar would be receiving wages through banks very soon.
State�s biggest tea estate � Manu Valley, producing 43.54 lakh kg of finished tea has 785 employees including tea pluckers, of whom wages of 750 employees have bank accounts in SBI and UBI.
Of the bank account holders, 320 have got pass books from the banks and wages of 309 tea pluckers and others have been deposited to banks. In Tripura, the Luxmi Tea Company Ltd has six tea estates with 2,352 employees including labourers.
�So far, altogether 1,749 labourers have opened bank accounts. Bank accounts for the remaining tea pluckers and other allied employees will be done in a phased manner�, said Assistant Manager of Luxmi Tea Group Prabir Dey said.
�Those who have bank pass books will get payment thorough banking system while others will get the same from the SDM office in cash�, he said.
Praising the role of the district administration, Dey said District Magistrate PR Nath has been personally monitoring the process so that labourers could get payment in time.
However, all is not well in the State�s tea industry in which around 12,000 people are directly engaged. �While base price of finished tea stands at Rs 115 per kg at auction markets, a kg of tea production costs around Rs 110/112. How will the industry sustain?�, he asked.
Dey continued that shortage of skilled labour also adds to the woes of the fragile tea industry in the State. �MGNREGA has severely affected the supply of labourers in Tripura. People don�t want to work in tea estates as they can earn more money by joining MGNREGA�, he pointed out.
When contacted, UBI chief manager Suprabhat Das said payment is to be made to labourers at Chandipur Community Sales Point (CSP) for the time being and later the same could be done inside the Tea Estate by using Point of Sales (POS) machine.