Displaying the power inherent in the idea of cooperative the workers of Bandapani Tea Garden decided to take matters in their own hands by forming a cooperative. Earlier, the private parties as well as the govt had failed, reducing the workers to a life of misery and paupers, reports Hindu.
They received cooperative status from the govt last month in April as the garden owners have fled with Rs.6 crore of their wages and other payments. Set up in 1895, the Bandapani Tea Garden changed hands several times before shutting down in July 2013.
Bandapani Tea Garden has about 1,200 workers on its rolls. The new nomenclature is Bundapani Tea and Allied Plantation Workers’ Cooperative Society.
Media reports say there are around 25 tea gardens which are closed in West Bengal. The whole place desperately needs the cooperative movement so that the workers are pulled out of sub-human living conditions. There have also been reports of starvation deaths in the area which Mamata denies vehemently.