Tea Plantation Labour in India Government of India, 1966, Report of the Central Wage Board for the Tea Plantation Industry, Delhi, Government Press. Griffiths, Perceval, 1967, History of the Indian Tea Ind ustry, London, Widenfeld and Nicolson. D.V. Rege, 1946, Report of an Enquiry on the Conditions of Tea Plantation Labour in India and Ceylon, Delhi, Government of India. 14 CHAPTER 2 Condition of Tea Estate Labourers in Assam Virginius Xaxa ssam plays a leading role in the production of tea. According to the Tea Board statistics, the State had 848 tea estates in 1991-92. This did not include the small tea growers numbering more than 100, registered with the Tea Board but had planted tea bushes recently. The area under tea in this State is more than the tea-growing area in the other three tea-growing States put topether. In 1991-82, the area stood at 233,284 hectares and production at 396,604 thousand kgs, of tea. Unlike the other States, where tea growing is confined to a few districts, tea producing in Assam is scattered over the whole of the State. (See Table 1) The spread is of course not even, There is a far greater number of tea estates in the Assam Valley than the Surma Valley. Silchar is the only zone that falls in the Surma Valley, the number of gardens there being only 100. The remaining 630 gardens were concentrated in the Assam Valley. Within this Valley most of the tea gardens are located in the upper part of the valley namely, Dibrugarh, Tinsukia, Jorhat, Golaghat, Tezpur, and Naogaon, than the lower portion (Gauhati, Dhubri). In fact as many as 611 out of 630 gardens were situated in the upper valley. Dibrugarh, Tinsukia, Jorhat, Tezpur have more number of tea gardens as compared to the Naogaon and Golaghat districts. It is not surprising then that the tea estates of Assam employ more workforce than those in the other States put together. Indeed of the total labour employed in tea estates, Assam accounts for ag much as 53 The author was essisted by M.C. Goswami and Anthony Xaxa in the collection of field data for the present work.