The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance Government at the Centre has decided to give a special dispensation for the tea gardens of Assam to tide over the ongoing currency crisis, triggered by the Center’s demonetisation move.
Assam Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Sunday said that Central Government has given a special dispensation to the tea gardens to ensure that tea garden workers are paid their weekly wages on time in the wake of the currency crisis.
“The Deputy Commissioner of the concerned district would withdraw the money required for paying the labourers wages and hand it over to the tea garden management. The tea garden management would give a cheque of the amount required to the Deputy Commissioner of the concerned district,” Sarma said while appreciating the Central Government’s concern.
The move is likely to benefit close to 15 lakh tea garden labourers in over 850 small and big tea gardens in Assam. The tea garden management apprehended law and order problems in the gardens on the wage day due to shortage of currencies triggered by the demonetisation move and the limit of daily withdrawal fixed by the Government. Cash is the only mode of payment in almost all the 850 tea gardens of Assam and most of the gardens pay the wages to its labourers weekly.
“The tea garden management approached us after the apprehension and we took up the matter with the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and the RBI immediately. The Central Government has been kind enough to consider our appeal and authorised the DCs of concerned district to withdraw the money on behalf of the garden management against a cheque to be provided by the particular tea garden,” Sarma said. Another benefit, the Minister said, is that with this, the Government is going to have exact data about the wages paid to the labourers in the tea gardens.
It may be mentioned here that wages of tea labourers is a sensitive issue in all the tea gardens of Assam and some of the tea garden management associations had sought the help of State Government in tackling the probable law and order situation in tea gardens, particularly on wage day on weekends.
The Finance Minister further assured the people that all the 3,115 ATMs of the State bank of India (SBI) would be loaded with new currencies by Sunday evening and hoped that the crisis will be over by next four to five days time.
“We are working in close coordination with the Central Government at the RBI in this regard. Out of the total 3,115 ATMs of SBI, 2,900 ATMS have been loaded with currencies of Rs 100 denominations only to benefit the people,” he said.
The SBI had already disbursed Rs 3,654 crore new currencies in the last two days including Rs 2,600 crore in Assam. The replacement by other commercial banks in the last two days is estimated at around Rs 1,100 crore,” he informed.