Tea Plantation Labour in Indic TABLE 3 Number of Tea Plantation according to Size and Area Region 100ha No. Ares Dagjeeling 16 1029 Teri 19 316 Daoars 15 388 West Bengal 50 1885 SOQURCE: Thid,, p. 19, 100-200ha No. Area 33 4917 15 2206 1 1715 59 8838 200-400 ha No. Aree 33 9180 18 5080 45 14,040 96 28,310 400+ ha No. Area 7 3442 10 4990 82 49,563 99 58,001 Tolal No. Area 89 18,508 62 12,654 153 65,812 304 97,034 The larger tea plantations dominate in West Bengal. Of the total 97,000 ha under tea, half (58,000 ha) is occupied by plantations which are over 400 ha in size. (See Table 3) In Assam, one-third of the area under tea is occupied by plantations above 400 ha whereas in Tamil Nadu estates over 400 ha occupy only one-fifth of the area under tea. The high average for West Bengal is mainly due to the size of the plantations in Dooars where 50,000 ha of the 66,000 ha under tea are occupied by the large estates. Comparatively, the estates in Daxjeeling and Terai are smaller in size, The larger plantations (400+ ha) in Terai constitute one-fourth of the area under tea while in Darjeeling thesé estates constitute only one-sixth of the area, At the same time, the proportion of the medium-size estates (200-400 ha) are more in Darjeeling than in Terai. Half of Darjeeling’s area under tea (9000 ha) comprises estates in the size group 200-400 ha whereas in Terai the proportion is approximately 40 per cent,. TABLE 4 Labour and Production Per Hectare (1992) Begion . . Lobour % Dar:ieeling 2.36 Teri 2.66 Dooars 2.37 West Bengal 2.40 SOURCE: Ihid,, p. 148, Production (hg.) " 640 1484 1736 1492 Production Per Labour (lig) 27 558 734 620 46 Tea Plantation Workers in West Bengal From the economic point of view, the larger estates are more viable than the smaller ones. We can observe this while comparing the production per ha for Dooars and Terai (see Table 4) since these two areas are similar. Though Terai has more labour per ha than Dooars (2.66 and 2.36), its production per ha is 1484 kg. while in Dooars it is 1736 kg. One reason for this is that the ownership of plantations in Docars is mainly with the larger companies such as Dunecan Agro, Williamson Magor, Andrew Yule, Goodricke, etc. These companies are financially sound and can invest more in maintaining their plantations, In Terai, on the sther hand, most of the plantations are owned by smaller companies and many of them were started by local Bengalee businessmen. These companies have not invested much in the -development-of-the-estates. The Labour Force There are two types of workers in the plantations, namely, permanent and temporary. Tea plantation workers are a part of the organiged sector as most of the industrial legislations relating to workers are applicable to them. The permanent workers, who number a little less than 250,000 have security of employment and they have other benefits such as free housing, medical facilities, primary education for their children, ete. These facilities are granted by the Plantation Labour Act, In fact, our research relates to examining whether these facilities have helped in improving the living and working conditions of the workers, Tea plantations in West Bengal also employ a sizable number of temporary labour, These people are engaged whenever additional hands are needed and they are known as bighe workers. There are no official statistics relating to the actual number of bigha workers employed in the plantations. The Tea Board of India gives figures for temporary workers who do not reside within the plantation, According to its report, there were arcund 24,000 such workers in 1992. (Tea Board, 1994: 138) This does not reflect the actual number of temporary workers because most of them reside within the gardens and in most cases are members of the permanent workers’ households. A study conducted by FES in 1991 (Davala, 1995:11-44) tried to estimate the extent of temporary workers in the tea plantations in the State. The study was