Nurul Amin Khan Sylhet Bureau :Wages have not been received for 17 weeks. Rations have also been stopped. The owners are also unable to say when wages and rations will be received. Workers have not been going to work for almost a month without receiving wages and rations. As a result, tea leaf harvesting has also been stopped. This is affecting the garden. The garden authorities say that the company is in a serious financial crisis due to the bank not renewing the loan. The bank is not renewing the loan this time as it could not repay last year’s loan. And if the loan is not received, it is not possible to pay wages to the workers.
And the workers claim that their stoves are closed. They are living inhumane lives due to not getting wages and rations. They claim that if there is no food in their stomachs, there is no work in their hands. Such a delicate situation is going on in three tea gardens and a factory in Sylhet. Due to not getting wages and rations, the stoves of about 1,500 workers of the institutions are not burning.
It has been found that Burjan, Charagang and Kalagul tea gardens and Burjan tea manufacturing factory owned by Burjan Tea Company are in serious financial crisis due to continuous losses. The company could not repay the loan taken from Krishi Bank last year. As a result, it did not get a new loan this year. Even after going to the court regarding this, there was no benefit.
The bank authorities are adamant. They will not give new loans until the outstanding money is received. In this situation, the authorities have stopped the wages and rations of about 1,500 permanent and temporary workers of three tea gardens and a factory. As a result, the workers are in serious danger.
Meanwhile, workers from three gardens and one factory of Burjan Tea Company have been on strike since March 15. As the workers are not going to work, the tea leaves are being destroyed in the gardens. The tea plants are also being destroyed. This is causing serious damage to the gardens.
The garden workers said that they have been borrowing and lending money for so long. Now they are not getting even that. In other words, the children are about to stop their education. Even if someone is sick, they are not getting treatment.
Meanwhile, tea workers have been protesting since before Eid with 11 demands, including payment of outstanding wages and rations. They are continuing this movement under the banner of ‘Cha Sramik O Tea Garden Raksha Committee’. Although a portion of the outstanding wages of the Lakkatura garden workers were paid after Eid, the workers of the gardens and factories owned by the Burjan Tea Company remain deprived.
Raju Goala, president of the Sylhet Valley Tea Workers Union, said that wages and rations have been stopped for about 17 months in the tea gardens and factories owned by Burjan Tea Company. The fire in the workers’ stoves is not burning. They are living an extremely inhuman life. There is no positive response from the owner regarding the outstanding wages and rations.
Burjan Tea Company Manager Kamruzzaman Chowdhury said that the company’s gardens are in loss. The loan was not renewed this time because it was not able to repay the last loan. Therefore, it is not possible to pay wages and rations to the workers. The owners are trying, but the company’s financial crisis will not end if they do not get the loan. There is no alternative to renewing the bank loan to pay wages and rations to the workers.
