Tea estate workers in Assam have reason to smile, even as they battle the COVID-19 pandemic that has been sweeping across estates since the second wave arrived in India.
The reason: Their wages have been hiked by 38 rupees (Rs) per day with retrospective effect from Feb. 23, 2021. Yet, it still falls short of what they would have liked to see fill their pockets every week when they are paid – but it’s a beginning.
With this hike, the daily wages of the workers in the Brahmaputra valley would go up to Rs 205 plus perks from the existing Rs 167, while their counterparts in poorer cousin Barak valley would get Rs 183 as against Rs 145 at present.
The last increase was by 22 percent way back in 2018 in Assam.
The outgoing government in its last cabinet meeting earlier in February – just before the elections in the state – had hiked the daily wage to Rs 217, entailing a Rs 50 raise, but the garden owners approached the Court, which put a stay on its implementation. The court left it to them to take a call, and the owners agreed to pay in the interim.
Post the March-April elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition retained power in Assam. The party and the opposition Congress had vigorously wooed the tea garden community with promises of largesse if they returned to power; the Congress had promised a whopping Rs 365 as daily wage.
The tea community, which constitutes nearly 20 percent of Assam’s population, has all along been a deciding factor in Assam elections, especially in the tea-rich eastern Assam districts, where a wage hike for tea workers has been a long-pending demand.
The government has said that the target of Rs 217 would be eventually met.
Price of Tea Remains Stagnant
Although the industry has welcomed the move, many fear that the increase would be a big blow, as the price of tea in the auction centers has remained stagnant for several years now, and the wage hike will certainly jack up the cost of production. Apart from the wages, every garden also provides ration, free medical facilities, housing and other perks to the workers.
“We welcome the government decision as tea workers deserve an increase in daily wage,” said a planter in the Dibrugarh district, who requested anonymity. “However, it will be a big blow, as prices of tea have not increased over the years, whereas cost of production has increased many fold.”
Prices of tea at the auction centers since 2014 have averaged Rs 152, Rs 156, Rs 156, Rs 152 and Rs 155, respectively, till 2019. This equates a tea range from $2.17 to $2.22 per kilogram for CTC teas, for which Assam is famous for. Though the market prices went up in 2020, it was basically due to huge crop loss because of COVID-19.
Assam Tea Industry Undergoes Severe Stress
Another planter said that the wage increase for the workers has come at a very wrong time when the tea industry is undergoing severe stress due to the ongoing pandemic since 2020, and unprecedented drought conditions during the beginning of the production season this year, which nipped the first flush in the bud.
According to a study, the crop deficit from January to May this year would be around 40 percent compared to 2019. Last year the production was much less due to COVID-19 and the lockdown.
In 2019, Assam produced 716.49 million kilograms of tea.
Stagnant prices have been such a concern for Assam tea that Tea Board of India Chairman Prabhat Kamal Bezboruah had questioned the long-term sustainability of tea in Assam.
While speaking at the annual General meeting of Assam Tea Planters' Association, the oldest body of ethnic tea planter in the Brahmaputra valley, sometimes back, he had cautioned that if the prices of tea do not increase in the next few years, it would be very difficult for the industry to survive.
Echoing Bezboruah, a senior scientist at the Jorhat-based Tocklai Tea Research Institute, the world's oldest such facility, said that quality production of tea would be the key to make the Assam tea industry sustainable. “We have to produce quality tea to fetch better prices and that is the only solution as of now,” he said.
Pullock Dutta – based in Assam, near the Tocklai Tea Research Institute – is a freelance journalist, contributor to World Tea News, and a previous special correspondent of the Telegraph in India for more than two decades.