Tea Plantation Labour in India Notwithstanding the fact that living conditions are inadequate, labourers in both the gardens were not well organised. There were of course units of trade unions especially those affiliated to the INTUC at work but the extent of awareness among labourers about their rights was-very poor. They know that they get some facilities such as medical, maternity, house, etc. but they do not know that these are part of their legal entitlements. In short, they are not aware of various provisions that are their due. CHAPTER 3 Tea Plantation Workers in West Bengal Sharit K. Bhowmik o References 1. AX. Nag, “The Condition of Tea Garden Labourers in North-East india and Its Background”,in S. Karotemprel and B, Datta-Ray (ed.), Tea Garden . Labourers of North-Easi Indie, 1990, p. 55. 2. Government of Assam, Annual Administration Report, 1991-92, p. 30. 3. Assa.m Branch of Indian Tea Association, Vital Statistics and Compre­hensive Family Welfaro Files, 4. D.R. Kalita and A.D, Goswami, “Socio-Economie Profile of Tea Garden Labourers: A Study in dJorhat, Assam", in 8. Karotemprel and B. Datta­Ray, (ed.), op. cit., p. 328, Indian Tea Association Report, 1993, 42 West Bengal is the second largest tea producing State in the country. Its two major tea growing districts, namely, J alpaiguri and Darjeeling, employ around 240,000 permanent workers. In this chapter the living condition of the workers in the tea plantations in these two districts is assessed. The data presented hereis based mainly on two sources. For the State-level data we have relied on the figures provided by the State Government's Labour Department which is published in the annual publication, Labour in West Bengal. The annual reports of the Tea Board in Tea Statistics was another source of information. We also interviewed some of the officials in the State’s Labour Department and some of the trade union leaders in the two districts, The garden-level data is based on the survey which was carried out in July-August 1995 in the selected gardens. These gardens were chosen so as to give a cross-sectional analysis of the living conditions of the workers. A total of one hundred and eighty-two workers and their households were identified for the study. These workers were chosen from three tea gardens in Jalpaiguri and five tea gardens in the Darjeeling district. The plantations are from different parts of each of the districts and represent different types of ownership (small companies and large companies) and thus shown up a comparative perspective between living conditions and class of ownership. The information collected is common to the three States where this study was conducted. The author was assisted in his research by Kanchan Sarkar and Sushma Gurung.