'Section of tea garden owners apathetic towards labourers'

Accusing a section of tea garden owners of being apathetic to the condition of the labourers, state Minister Jyotipriyo Mullick today accused a section of them of not providing the labourers with subsidized food material available from the government.
"We are providing rice to closed tea garden workers at Rs 2 per kg. For those from working tea gardens we are providing rice at a subsidized rate. But certain owners of those tea gardens are not abiding by it and are not withdrawing the subsidized food material," the Food Supplies Minister said.
"But when there is a problem in terms of food supplies, everybody blames the state government," he said.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had on Tuesday warned that the state government would take over tea gardens if their owners failed to operate them properly.
"Those who are running the tea gardens properly, we will help them. But those tea garden owners, who are closing their tea gardens all of a sudden without even giving back the provident fund money to the employees are not doing the right thing," she had said.
Banerjee had said the state government will take over the closed tea gardens in that eventuality and give it to someone else through management system and that she had ordered resumption of drinking water and electricity supply to the closed tea gardens.