Tea Plantation La‘bour in India that.: are available in the vicinityof the plantations, Even if jobs are avml?ble these are in the nature of daily wage, besides being low income fetcl.ung. There is no doubt a possibility of absorbing the educated sections from the plantations if the areas around the plantations are deve10p'ed in some way. In the absence of any such development most ?vould like to work on the plantations if they could get jobs there, even if these happen to be temporary ones. Moreover, it is quite clear from the responses of the people who have jobs outside the plantations that they would prefer to go back and work on the plantations. _ jI'he survey shows that out of 1060 people, 486 (45.8 per cent) are not gainfully employed; of these 393 (80.87 per cent) are in the age-group of (()1 t;)l 18 years; 58 (11.93 per cent) are between the ages 19to 59 years, 1?}111053 e rist 35 (7.2 per cent) are 60 years and above. As we can consider o upeo ;:‘htfi age of 18 years and those above 60 years as dependents, e g;rr of the actual unemployed would just be 45 (9.3 per cent). For entire sample of 1060, the percentage of the unemployed is just 4.2. (26(_)6f :)1;: z‘::tl)lifpulatmn Ot: 1060, 339 (32 per cent) are illiterate; 262 secondary, 192-(;12%"3 had primary education, 190 (17.9 per cent) have have highe -1 per cent) have high school and 40 (3.8 per cent) graduatfis ¥ seigondary education, Four persons (0.4 per cent) are cent) havr; ?11;1 dG ip er cent) are professional graduates, five (0.5 per diplomas from ITI]p P fr?m polytechnics, two (0.2 per cent) have the catas fhjs and oneis a post-graduate, (See Table 3) Except in S Coimbatogroery diosftrict high school qualified persons,. the Nilgiris scores over strict in the rest of the categories, including the category _ While the 177 (16.7 per cent) who work on the plantations are iHliterate, the respective figures for those who are unemployed, for those who work on small g plantation context are il;éens and for those who work outside the per cent). The last ’ (13.8 per cent), 11 (one per cent) and 5 (0.5 Hontations o inss caltlegory—_——of t?mse who do not work either on the person is confined?at gardens_.ls evidence that without education a finding jobs ontaid 0 the plantation, whereas being educated helps in of four years Sc}iosllfhe.plantation_ The remaining 38 have a minimum’ person | with the ¢ hi highe o st 8 qu 1 a 9 lif by i f ca t t h i e o s n e , have ten years an M.A.,i8 also of schooling. The from this category. 84 Tea Plantation Labour in Tamil Nadu TABLE 3 Levelsof Education (Nilgiris and Coimbatore) Education Illiterate Functionally Literate! Primary* Middle® . Secondary and above* Frequency 339 . 58 224 227 212 : . _ Percentage 82.0 5.5 21.1 26.1 15.3 Total 1060 100.0 1) One or two years of schooling; 2) Upto five years of schooling; 3) Upto nine years of schooling; 4) Ten years or more of schooling. . Of the 486 unemployed, 146 (30.04 per cent) 340 (69.96 per cent) have (including those. who one to 15 years of education. Those who have schooling are 243 (50 per cent). are illiterate; rest of the are currently studying) more than five years of | Nilgiris District In Tamil Nadu, the Nilgiris District ranks first as regards both the area under plantations and as also the total number of plantations. All the four taluks in the district have tea plantations of all categories, namely, company gardens, proprietary gardens and gardens of small growers. The initial phase of the tea industry in South India was restricted to the Nilgiris. It was in 1834 that Dr. Christi of the Madras Establishment experimented with growing tea and gave some tea saplings to various individuals in the Nilgiris. The area covered under teaplantations increased from 20,840 hectares in 1961 to 26,524 hectares ­in 1990. (Tea Statistics, 1990-91) Among the four taluks of the Nilgiris, except Qoty the rest of the taluks have a substantial number of plantations. Ten sample plantations were gelected in all the taluks, which includes four from Coonoor (including TANTEA), three from Kottagiri, two from Godalur, and one from Qoty. Out of the ten plantations 109 households were selected for household census and 11 more households who are worling in the gardens of small growers were also included. 85