Tea Plantation Labour in India TABLE 19 Status of Education of Labourers’ Children Distriet Jorhat A ' B Dibrugarh C D No. of Children in the estate ­82 119 93 96 School-going Children 15 47 30 ’ 83 Household Earnings and Standard of Living The standard of living is usually very low in the tea gardens. The data regarding the earning, expenditure, savings and assets owned by the tea plantation labourers are presented below:; Jorhat Dibrugarh Average monthly earnings per household Average monthly expenditure per household Average monthly saving per household 1091.84 1053.89 57.89 1436.27 928.66 394,90 The balance of savings is more favourable in Dibrugarh than in Jorhat. The average savings varies among households depending on the number of working members, For example, in one of the gardens of D%brugarh, savings stood at Rs. 230, 592 and 765 among households with working members of 1, 2 and respectively. Similarly, in another garden of Jorhat, out of 11 households with some savings, 8 had two or three working members each. There were no households with four or more working members in Dibrugarh. In Jorhat, there were a few households in this category. The balance of savings among them was, however, negligible perhaps due to the large size of households and/or lack of regular employment; among the able-bodied members of the households. The reason as to Why Dibrugarh projects a better picture withregard 40 Living Conditions of Tea Estate Labourers in Assam The average monthly wage in the two gardens of Dibrugarh is Rs. 646 and Rs. 635 respectively, whereas in Jorhat the average came to just about Rs. 500 per month., Given this wage structure, an average household income is considerably lower in Jorhat and, consequently, the average monthly savings is also smaller. As for the number of households with balance of savings, the figure was 19 out of 100 households in Jorhat. The corresponding figure in Dibrugarh was 53, Out of this 30 households came from Garden D of which seven had savings account too. In Jorhat, out of 19 households which made some savings, seven had life insurance policies. Paradoxically, there is lesser level of indebtedness among tea garden labotrers in Jorhat than those of Dibrugarh. In Jorhat, no houschold was indebted. In Dibrugarh, the number of households indebted were 10, the average amount taken on debt being Rs. 20,065. The average indebtedness per household was Rs. 2006. The number of households indebted in one of the gardens was two. Both these households had only one working member in the family whereas the family size ranged between 4 to 5 members from the other garden in Dibrugarh, eight households were indebted of which six were indebted to shopkeepers and the other two to moneylenders. The amount indebted per household was Rs. 2295 on an average. The reason why labourers in Jorhat are not indebted despite the fact that they had a lower wage structure is due to the fact that a substantial segment of them own land. In one of the gardens 22 out of 50 owned land. The size of land ranged between 1to 6 bigha. In another estate of Jorhat 24 households had land. In contrast, the number of those with land were merely 17 in Dibrugarh. The assets generally owned and possessed by the garden labourers comprised such things as land, cattle (cow, ox, bullock), cycle, radio, tape-recorder, TV set, etc. Land is one of the assets tea garden labourers aspire to have, Savings are often used in purchase of land. Normally, savings are generally used in purchase of such items as cycle, cow, ox, radio, TV etc. Indeed in the two gardens of Jorhat there were 17 TV sets, radios, 60 cycles, 134 cows, 32 oxen and 29 bullocks, etc. (We have not been able to collate data on this aspect in Dibrugarh. Given the fact that the size of savings was large in Dibrugarh, the picture may have been better there.) 41