Tripura Tea Development Corporation (TTDC) Chairman Santosh Saha on Wednesday said that if everything falls in the right direction, the state will soon get a Tea Museum at Durgabari tea estate. “The North East Council has already approved one project worth Rs 2 core 30 lakh recently and the Tea Museum project worth Rs 3.5 crore is expected to be cleared by May. Another ambitious project of modernization of Durgabari tea estate is pending”, Saha told reporters during a press conference. According to Shaha, the exhibits of the Museum shall showcase the legacy of the tea industry that is considered as the longest surviving industry of the tiny North Eastern state.
Saha said, as promised by the Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb, the concerned district magistrates and sub-divisional magistrates have started their survey work for providing land to each family of tea garden workers. “During survey work we have seen that the tea garden workers don’t have any proper document. So the government has also decided to provide them with all kind of document like Aadhar cards, ration cards etc”, he added.
There are altogether 54 tea estates spread over 12,800 hectares of land and 2,755 small gardens planted in an area of one 1,398 hectares of land. The total number of tea garden workers stood at 7,230. Slamming the Left Front, Saha said, “Tripura tea industry suffered a lot during the Left regime. Many tea gardens were closed and no proper attempts were undertaken to raise the wages of tea garden workers. After BJP came to power, the daily wages had been increased to Rs 176 from Rs 105 in two phases”.
