Study on Livelihood Crisis and Socio-economic Condition of Tea Garden Workers in Dooars of West Bengal

The tea industry in India is one of the most important agro-based industries in terms of generating local employment and earning foreign exchange. The state of West Bengal (WB) contributes the majority of tea produced in India. The Doors region, which is located in the Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar districts of WB, is home to several tea estates where the majority of tea is grown, produced, and processed. The terrain of Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar, which are located at foothills of the Eastern Himalaya, is dotted with hundreds of verdant green tea gardens and several meandering rivers. The tea gardens are located throughout these two districts and employ a sizable portion of the local population, who are mostly from rural areas and heavily represented in the SC and ST communities. There is a total of 64 tea gardens in the Alipurduar District and 120 tea gardens in the Jalpaiguri District. However, a serious humanitarian catastrophe and several other serious crises still exist behind the scenes in the production of this well-known beverage. Over the past few decades, owing to various socio-economic factors, many tea gardens in Dooars region have been abandoned or shut down. Due to their usual sources of income being lost, the tea garden workers are now at great risk of starvation and malnutrition, putting them in a state of dire socioeconomic calamity. There are hardly any alternative employment opportunities for the jobless tea workers in and around the locality except irregular jobs such as stone crushing, tree leaves collection, daily labour in urban and semi-urban localities etc. As reported, workers are now feeling unconfident regarding their livelihood security in the tea gardens of Dooars. Due to the catastrophic consequences, a considerable segment of the tea garden labour force is presently relocating to other states to sustain their livelihoods. A thorough field study was conducted to evaluate the socioeconomic conditions of the tea garden workers in Dooars and to pinpoint their current livelihood crisis. It also aimed to identify the various factors those were responsible for their current lack of livelihood security, as well as the primary factors that drove their tendency to migrate away from the Dooars tea gardens where they were employed for generations. It was also recommended that in order to maintain the Dooars tea industry in West Bengal, necessary corrective action be taken to eliminate the livelihood migration propensity of the tea garden workers in the region and to enhance their socioeconomic conditions.