Tea Plantation Labour in India kuccha latrines. The total number of households in these gardens were 21172 Medical Facilities The provision made for the welfare of the labourers in the PLA, is far from satisfactory on the aspect of health and health facilities. The facilities such as dispensaries, hospitals, group hospitals as well as qualified medical personnels such as doctors, nurses, pharmacists, etc. are far below what is required by the statutory regulations. (See Table 7) This is amply clear if one examines the data on this aspect filed by 666 gardens carefully, TABLE 7 Status of Medical Facilities Facilities 199091 199192 Hospitals Dispensaries ' Qualified doctors Visiting doctors Pharmacists Nursges Midwives Nurses cum midwives Dhai/attendants Health assigtant Beds in hospitals Beds at dispensaries ' Inspections made Complaints investigated Cases ficlded Conviction obtained 502 482 662 423 393 646 351 330 290 G600 436 — — ' 350 668 416 398 691 423 440 296) 690 463 82,811 1,403 1:359 e ­b ’ y 7 _ téz . SOURCE: Government of Assam, Aninual Administration Report, pp. 17-19 and 31, Creches From 666 gardens on which refy . for children below tw chreturns are available, we find 1917 creches 0 years with an average daily attendance of 8094 28 Livirg Conditions of Tea Estate Labourers in Assam children and 1461 creches for children above two years with an average daily attendance of 5051 children. The number of hammocks and beds made available at creche for the use of children were 3043 and 1124 respectively. The number of ayahs engaged were 608. Education Scope of occupation and soctal mobility among tea garden workers is generally limited. The Jey to such mobility lies in the spread of education. But it is precisely here that we find the situation most depressing despite the fact that the PLA makes provision for educational advancement of the tea garden labourers. A study of lower primary (LP) schools in the tea gardens of Sibsagar and Jorhat show the dropout rate as high as 98 per cent within five years. The situation is not much different in other districts. General apathy to education by the management as well as the Union is the principal factor, In the tea gardens of Agsam, primary schools are run by two agencies—the tea estate management and the government. In the districts of Sibsagar, Jorhat, Golaghat, Cachar, Hailakandi and Karimganj near about 200 tea garden schools have been taken over by the government. Many of the schools, however, are yet to be taken over by the government. The tea estate authorities have begun to show no concern on this aspect, In other districts of the State, the tea garden schools are still managed by the garden authorities. There were about 370 schools under such management in 1990, (See Table 8) It appears that there are still gardens where school facilities do not exist. This can be inferred from the fact that in Dibrugarh 128 gardens had filed returns but the number of schools shown was only 122. On the whole, facilities provided and teachers maintained seem to meet the requirement of the PLA. Despite the facilities provided by the government and the management, the enrolment level is very low as can be seen from the table. The literacy level in tea gardens is extremely deplorable. A study in the tea gardens in Jorhat, estimated the percentage of literacy at 11.65, If one goes by the level of literacy then we find 8.30 per cent at LP level, 0.47 per cent LP passed, 2.33 per cent Matric and only 0.47 per cent ab higher education.! : 27