Assam: Lockout withdrawn; Puthini Tea Estate in Karimganj to reopen today

A Correspondent

Silchar: The crisis in Puthini Tea Estate in Karimganj seemed to have eased as the garden management, in a tripartite meeting with the Labour Department and the Cachar Chah Shramik Union, agreed to withdraw the lockout notice and to pay the daily wages of Rs 128. The garden will reopen on Monday, and the pending wages of the 500 labourers will be paid, a source in the union said after the tripartite meeting in Silchar on Saturday.

Tensions gripped the Puthini Tea Estate on Friday when the labourers found a lockout notice pasted on the main gate of the garden and the office staff, including the manager, Supriyo Sikidar, had already left the place. Copies of the lockout notice signed by Sikidar were sent to the Deputy Commissioner, Police Super, Labour Commission, and the Union. The notice said on Tuesday that a group of labourers, along with some outsiders, stopped the car of the manager and virtually gheraoed him in an aggressive manner. Later, the deputy manager somehow escorted Sikidar to a safer place.

Puthini Tea Estate in Patharkandi, known as a sick garden for decades, used to be in the news for all the wrong reasons. The recent turmoil began when the management made it clear that they would not be able to pay the daily wages at the rate of Rs 128 as fixed by the state government instead of the current rate of Rs 110.

After the management declared the lockout on Friday, the Cachar Chah Shramik Union, the most influential body, stepped in to solve the stalemate. On Saturday, a tripartite meeting was held in Silchar. The meeting, presided over by the Assistant Labour Commissioner Hemanta Kalita, was attended by Kripanath Mallah and Rajdeep Goala, the presidents of the Chah Shramik Union, respectively, and Saradindu Bhattacharjee of the Tea Association of India, while the garden management was represented by its directors Kamalesh Singh, Sushil Singh, and Supriyo Sikidar.

Also Read: Assam: Workers at Dikorai Tea Estate Protest for Fair Demands, Threaten Indefinite Protest (sentinelassam.com)

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