Hundreds of workers die as India's tea industry suffers crisis
Pastor Dale Morgan
Hundreds of workers die as India's tea industry suffers crisis*
· Plantations close after collapse in prices
· Court inquiry finds sharp rise in malnutrition
Randeep Ramesh in New Delhi
Monday June 11, 2007
The Guardian
They were once the epitome of colonial gentility and imperial wealth,
sending bags of delicately flavoured tea around the world. Today, thanks
to changing drinking habits, a collapse in prices and rising labour
costs, penury and death stalk the plantations of the lower Himalayas.
An inquiry into the fading fortunes of tea estates in Jalpaiguri, a
remote part of West Bengal state bordering the Himalayan kingdom of
Bhutan, found last week that at least 700 Indian tea workers have died
from diseases linked to malnutrition in the last year after 16 estates
were closed. Investigations by the supreme court and tea workers'
associations found that the workers laid off could find no other work
and legal provisions for health and support payments never materialised.
Activists say they end up foraging for food in forests to keep and their
families alive. "We have seen a huge rise in starvation-related deaths
after these tea estates were closed down. There is no effective safety
net for those who lose their job and the result is that they die for
lack of food or medicines," said Anuradha Talwar, a supreme court
adviser, who compiled a report about the deaths.
Ms Talwar's research showed that even those who were employed endured
hardship. One survey showed 22 tea estates owed workers more than 360m
rupees (£4.5m) in back pay. "Many health centres did not have adequate
supplies of anti-snake venom serum. It is not indifference but a matter
of life and death."
The country's tea industry has recently been hailed as an example of how
to cope with globalisation - cutting costs while expanding overseas. One
such company is Tata Tea, which bought Britain's Tetley while slashing
its employees by 30,000.
Monojit Dasgupta, secretary general of the Indian tea association, said
that tea estates had to "become competitive and that the tragic deaths
should be put in context of a sector with 250 tea estates".
"We have seen [tea] prices crash from 78 rupees in 1998 to 55 rupees in
2004. We had to deal with the competition from new growers. The
distressful situation in certain parts of Bengal is a chronic problem
which perhaps needs timely government intervention. But I think it does
not reflect the industry's position."
India, the world's largest producer and consumer of tea, has laws that
theoretically protect the industry's remaining 200,000 workers. However,
many are not enforced, said Ms Talwar. Many pickers have left to work in
Bhutan's rock-crushing industry, where employment is erratic and often
dangerous.
The Indian minister for commerce, Jairam Ramesh, told the Guardian that
the government was "engaged in finding a solution. I think we have a
small number of problems and we are looking at ways to deal with the
plight of the people."