Labour shortage has been reflected in the overall production of the industry. [break]
Most of the factories are currently operating with just half of the total labor requirement. Workers started quitting jobs after facilities in other work places lured them. “It´s very hard to find a single worker who is ready to join the tea industry,” Naresh Barma, a tea industrialists from the district said.
Tea gardens cover about 16,718 hectares of land in Jhapa district now employes just 25,000 people in the work. "Women constituted 80 percent of the total work force," he said.
However, no actual data of laborers are available. According to Barma, the industry has a capacity of providing jobs for 40,000 laborers for 7 months this year.
According to the Tea Estate Workers´ Association (TEWA), a labor gets Rs 158 per day, 5 percent of it goes to provident fund and each get Rs 20,000 in gratuity at retirement - which is 55 years for workers. "There are three kinds of employment provisions; permanent, temporary and contract basis," said Deepak Tamang, president of TEWA.
However, only 5 percent of the existing laborers are permanent, rest work on daily wages. "Who wants to join industry with these given facilities?" questions Tamang.
Almost every year laborers go for strike with the demand of better facilities.
"Industrialists, who fight with each other all the time are however, united when it comes to suppressing the laborers´ demand," one of the union leaders said, "We can do nothing when they are united." He added that there are only old people in the work force. According to him, young people prefer to go into transport service sector.
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