Tea Plantation Labour in India allotted by the Board during the year 1992-93 is 2756 and in 1993-94 it is 1650. This includes patients coming from the plantations of Kerala too but the number of cases from Kerala is minimal. Most patients are from the Nilgiris. (Office records, Tea Board) ' The Tea Board sends circulars to the managements of all plantations about the provisions meant for the workers. The Tea Board officials in Qoonoor feel that the managements show no interest in conveying the information to the workers, and the unawareness of the workers about the scheme deprives them from utilising the scheme properly. United Planters Association of South India (UPASI) Since 1972 UPASI had been implementing a scheme called the ComPrehensive Labour Welfare Programme. It is a voluntary scheme an.d.ls ad.ministered by a sub-committee appointed for the purpose. Initially, it had its own personnel as medical officers and public health workers, The core areas where the scheme was implemented were: ­publ‘icf health, personal and environmental hygiene, preventive mesfli?lne,.motivation, child and maternal care, improvement of creches, training of medical and health staff of the plantations. Gradually the Programme became a part and parcel of the management’s goals and now the implementation is largely carried out by the individual managem-ents using their own infrastructure with the UPASI acting as an advisory body. (Sivaraman, 1991) Labourers in Small Gardens In the Nilgiris district, apart from the company estates and proprietary r%Eltlrélsens, a large I}umber of small gardens are owned by individuals. neigh?; Ocl)lx.’w.ners.lhlre labourérs to work in the gardens from the ot Rs. 2 ring villages. They are hired on daily wages. The men workers get Rs. ¢ 0 per day and the women workers get Rs. 20 per day, These p pe r o o pl w l s e : . mn fi s ve w o h n ic 't h hei a r re ow a n vai c l l a o b s l e e to to the gardens workers in and the do not get any other company estates and fi:\lrpnezary gardens. Most of them are migrants from the plains, and of] e S; tled permanently at'different periods, except a small population andless Badagas, and tribals of the Nilgiris. o8 Tea Plentation Labour in Tamil Nedu The three kinds of tea estates covered are: Company garden Proprictary garden ­Small garden . a plantation owned by a group of owners a plantation owned by a single owner less than five hectares (ie., less than 15 acres) Coimbatore District Valparai is the only taluk in Coimbatore district which has both tea and coffee plantations. It is 64 kms south of Pollachi at an elevation of 1082 m above MSL. A total of 16,139.569 hectares are under plantation in this taluk; out of this 12,827.59 hectares are under tea and 3,312.00 hectares are under coffee plantation. Cardamom and cloves are very meagre since they are mixed with the coffee plantation and the coffee estates too are few in this district: There are 57 estates of which 39 are tea estates and 18 are coffee estates. The figures collected from the records of the Labour Department’s office at Valparai shows that the tea estates employed nearly 22,000 workers of whom around 9100 were males and 12,900 were females. These tea estates are owned by Parry Agro, Tata, Kothari group of companies, Stanmore group (Tea India Litd.), TANTEA (Public sector), B.B.T.C, Periya Karumalai (P.K.T.), NEPC, Jayasree, ctc. To draw a reasonable sample representative of the plantations with different wage patterns, six plantations were selected for study, namely, Stanmore, Parry Agro, TANTEA. Annaimudi, Savamalai and Karumalai. Four out of the above six plantations follow one type of wage structure, while Savamalai estate follows the Minimum Wages Act, and the TANTEA has entered into a separate wage agreement with the employees. Housing Conditions _ The houses in the plantationlinesin Valparai are permanent structures with tiled roofs, brick walls and mostly with cement flooring. However, some houses of the TANTEA group have mud flooring. The maintenance of the houses is undertaken by the company. All major repairs are also attended to by the company at the request of the worker, Almost all the permanent workers are allotted a house measuring an oyverall area of s A Sy \(}*«-fi,hfl-‘;{t v g 5 F" 99 PR . e b