Alipurduar tea garden closes, leaving 1300 workers in despair

The Mechpada Tea Garden in the Kalchini block of Alipurduar district announced its indefinite closure on the evening of January 8. The following morning, workers arriving for their shifts found the garden gates locked, with a notice posted stating the suspension of operations. The closure has directly impacted around 1,300 workers and their families, leaving them without their primary source of income.

Mechpada is the latest in a growing list of tea gardens to suspend operations in the Alipurduar district, where there are 69 registered tea gardens. Currently, nine tea gardens, including Mechpada, have shut down. These closures are part of a larger trend across the region, which has seen a combination of economic challenges, political tensions between the state and central governments, and disruptions to employment programs like the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). The political standoff has resulted in a lack of alternative employment opportunities for the workers, exacerbating their financial hardships.

The closure of the Mechpada Tea Garden has drawn attention from local labor unions, particularly the Alipurduar-Coochbehar Tea Garden Workers’ Union. Union leaders have raised concerns that when new tea leaves begin to sprout, garden owners may demand that workers return under adverse working conditions. The union has called on both the state and central governments to intervene, urging immediate action to reopen the closed tea gardens and ensure that workers are not exploited. The union has also emphasized the need for government support to ensure that workers’ families receive adequate assistance during this period of uncertainty.