Tea gardens blocking land transfer to workers may lose govt incentives

Guwahati: Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma on Thursday said state govt will stop providing govt incentives to tea gardens that are not cooperating with govt in implementing the decision to give land rights to tea garden workers’ families.The decision to grant land rights to those living in the labour colonies of the state’s tea estates was set to benefit over 3 lakh families of tea garden workers.State govt introduced the legislation to provide land rights to tea garden workers in the winter session of the assembly last year. However, he said, as state govt went ahead to implement it, some of the tea garden owners were not cooperating.“For tea gardens, we passed the bill to allot tea garden lands or lands of labour colonies there to the labourers. It is a transformative legislation, and the governor has already given his assent to it. We also started the land acquisition process, and this move will benefit 3.33 lakh families. However, we are not happy over non-cooperation by the tea garden owners,” Sarma said.Sarma added that state govt gives incentives of about Rs 150 crore every year to the tea gardens. “We will be compelled to reconsider the incentives given to tea gardens if they go to courts or create hurdles in the land acquisition process,” Sarma said.He added that after 200 years since the establishment of the state’s tea industry, the tea garden labourers have every right to get ownership of their land.The amendment bill was passed in Nov, paving the way for granting land rights to the state’s tea garden labourers’ families, who live in labour lines or tea garden labourer colonies without legal ownership of land. Stat