Assam Elections 2016: Tea workers in CM Tarun Gogoi's constituency await basic facilities

A few kilometres from chief minister Tarun Gogoi's house which is in Rangapara in Titabor constituency, is ward 7 of the Bokahola Tea Estate. It is a few metres off State Highway 1 that connects Jorhat town to Totabor town.

Inside the ward, a group of women are washing clothes near a tap from a reservoir. A few metres away is a dirty pond. Locals say that when the tap does not give water, they go to the pond. Without a proper water system, and with the reservoir water not being cleaned, they have to use the pond water sometime. It is unclean and risky, but they say, they don't have much of a choice.

Women wash utensils from water in a reservoir (top) and a pond in ward 7 of Bokahola Tea Estate from where residents drink water (below)

Down the road, as one takes a left and there are the local election camps of Congress, which has huge posters of CM Tarun Gogoi, and his son Gaurav, and the BJP, of Kamakhya P Tasa and chief minister candidate Sarbananda Sonowal. The BJP is fielding Tasa who is from the tea tribe and is currently the Lok Sabha MP. Along with Rameshwar Teli, Tasha is one of the only two MPs from the tea community. Congress Paban Singh Ghatowar, who was a Union minister, is also from the tea worker community.

As we cross the camps, one reaches a dispensary. It is shut. The locals say that they are asked to go to nearby Titabor for small emergencies, and that there's only one ambulance. They also allege that the dispensary opens between 9 to 9:30 in the morning, and 3 to 4 in the afternoon.

Unhygienic conditions at a local dispensary that locals say usually remains shut.

Proper housing is not provided to some of the permanent workers, and none of the houses have bathrooms. If they want to increase the size of their houses, they need permissions. If the wind blows away the tins roofs, they need to pay a commission to get it fixed. Even in the local school, classes are not provided properly, they say.

A crèche that is used by grazing goats and not by the children. 

Somu Telenga, says he must be around 50 because there is no official record of his birth. He has been working in the gardens for over 25 to 30 years, either fixing pipes, or in the kitchens, or plucking leaves. He earns Rs 115 daily, as against the state wage board's mandated minimum wage of Rs 175. He says there is an improvement of Rs 15 since January. "But we are yet to get the extra for the last three months," he says.

55-year-old Sambharu Nayak says that he has given 40 years to the tea estate, but is still a temporary worker. The Tea Plantation Labour Act of 1951 mandates that a worker who has worked for three months regularly must be made permanent. It also makes it mandatory to give workers safe drinking water, housing, health and education facilities. The workers allege that none of this is provided to them.

Somu Telenga (left) and Sambharu Nayak (right) 

The estate has 448 permanent workers, and 1500 temporary. Ward 7 has 758 voters, and none seem to be in a mood to re-elect Gogoi, who has been winning Titabor for 15 years.

Bokahola is one of the 775 registered tea estates in Assam, which employs over 20,25,000 workers. Barely 5% of these workers are literate, and work to produce Assam's famed tea, which forms over 56% of India's total tea production.

In Titabor constituency, there are 40 tea estates. Bokahola also houses a factory, know to be one of the largest in the country. The other factories are in Madhapur, Jokholating, Khorikatoriya, and Soraipani. Of the 1, 52,000 voters here, 52,000 are from the tea estates.

Santosh Tasa of the Assam Tea Tribes Student Association (ATTSA) says that despite the votes, they have not been given their due. "Look at how we live, I cannot even feed my child milk if I want to. We cannot save, and they don't want us to be educated. The Congress government came to us for votes, but never did anything for us," he says.

Bala Tasa of the Chah Shramik Mukti Sangram Samiti (CSMSS) says that the inhuman conditions of the people have been repeatedly ignored. "We may have gained Independence from the British as a country 69 years ago, but our people are still bound by these age-old inhuman practices," he says.