CHAPTER II
The Tea Estates and the Management

2.1 Background

The tea industry in Nepal, though limited to a few Districts, especially Jhapa and Ilam, can play a vital role in earning foreign currency. The production of high quality Orthodox tea and its export can make a major contribution to our economy. However, the export situation at present is far from satisfactory.

Table 2.1 Export Situation of Tea in Nepal

Source: Trade Promotion Centre

The export of tea as a whole is under the control of the business groups and Tea Packers. Even the NTDC is unaware of the exact quantity of tea exported from the country.

The tea industry was started by Colonel Gajaraj Singh in Ilam, where he was a high official of the Rana regime. He was attracted by the Tea Estates in Darjeeling, India and so in around 1864, started tea farming in his Birta land.

The tea plantation began spreading with the passage of time. Once it was seen as a potentially profitable industry, the landlords of Jhapa were attracted towards it and turned themselves into tea industrialists. It was especially in 1964 when the Land Reform Act was introduced that the then major landowners of Jhapa, in order to keep the land under their ownership, turned to tea plantation and tea industry. Therefore, even though the tea industry was initiated in Ilam, it was found to have really started on a large scale in Jhapa. At present small-scale farmers are seen to be gradually attracted to tea farming.

2.2 The Tea Gardens Surveyed

In total, 35 tea estates were surveyed of which 26 are located in Jhapa and 9 in Ilam. Nine tea estates are public owned and the remaining 26 are under private ownership.

Table 2.2 Surveyed Tea Estate by District and Status

Note: The total percentage may not add up to 100.0 due to rounding up.
        Figures in parenthesis indicate number of tea estates.
Source: Field Survey, 1996

The nature of the management of the private and the public sectors of the tea industry is found to be different. Further, even though both the NTCDB and the NTDC belong to the public sector, they differ on the question of profit. The NTCDB does not operate on the basis of profit. It focuses on attracting the private sector, on motivating it and providing technical knowledge and supplying tea plants (seedlings). The size of the tea gardens under the NTCDB is relatively small. The NTDC tea gardens, on the other hand, are large and operate on profit-motive on the basis of modern management techniques. The modern techniques and style of management have slowly developed in the private tea gardens also but they are closer to the cottage industry type of management. It is also natural that the small scale tea farmers should adopt a traditional form of cash crop production.

A majority of the larger tea estates have their own tea processing factories while small tea gardens sell green leaves to the larger tea estates. In Ilam, however, there are two private factories that collect green leaves from small farmers.

Two main categories of tea are produced, namely, CTC and Orthodox. The Orthodox tea has more varieties. The CTC tea does not have any basic grading. The orthodox tea is graded as follows:

These products are graded according to a very fine processing method. Altogether the tea gardens under the survey cover 5018 hectares of land, but the actual area under plantation is 3087 hectares (i.e. 61.52 percent).

While looking at their annual production, three of the gardens have not started production yet. Others, in total, produce 99,23,158 KGs of green leaves annually, of which Orthodox tea is 12,23,158 KGs and the rest is CTC tea. Since after processing, green tea leaves are reduced to 1/5th of the volume in the form of finished tea or 'made' tea, we can conclude that the annual production of finished tea last year was 19,84,631.6 KGs of which Orthodox tea was about 2,44,930 KGs. Officially, the export of tea was found to be very little, although more than 80 per cent of the Orthodox tea goes outside the country. It is suspected that tea is smuggled to India whether finished or green and packed as Darjeeling Tea, fetching a high profit to the Indian traders.

2.3 The Management and Labour in the Tea Estates

Compared to the previous decades, the 1990's have seen some improvement in labour-management relations in the tea industry. In the 132 year old history of the tea industry in Nepal, for almost 126 years the workers were subject to exploitative and oppressive treatment. The workers have no history of struggle against the exploitation of management prior to the Panchayat era. During the Panchayat era, they tried time and again to organise themselves. It was especially during the period 1979-1985 that the tea plantation workers within the NTDC tried to organise themselves and launched struggles against the management. This resulted in improved wages but in the private tea estates, no improvement could be brought about in the condition of the workers. The daily wages of adult males, females and child workers were only Rs. 11.25, Rs. 9.25 and Rs. 7.00 respectively in 1985.

After the re-establishment of democracy and the introduction of the Labour Act 1992, a sharp decline has been observed in the number of child workers. Even so, the use of child labour is prevalent even to this day, during the tea plucking season. The Indian system of classification of tea workers - Male (Marad), Female (Aurat), Adolescent (Chhokara), Child (Lokada) was used in Nepal for a very long time. According to the classification, the "Lokada" were children aged below 14, the "Chhokara" were adolescents aged between 14-18 and the "Aurat" class represented the female adult workers and some of the young workers both male and female who were not being paid adult wages. This system of classification came to an end after 1990. In many private tea gardens, the classification is limited to Male, Female and Adolescents. However, a few tea gardens in Jhapa, especially the Bansal, Kalika, Jyamirgadi, Shyamsundar, Kabadidevi and Loknath tea estates still follow the old Indian system of classification of workers but, ever since the introduction of the Labour Act (1992), the management in those tea estates have found a way to keep this fact off the record.

At present the management in most of the tea gardens have done away with gender-based wage discrimination and the present wage rate is Rs. 40 per day. The private tea gardens of Jhapa, lying on the border areas, still follow gender-based discriminatory practices in terms of wages. An adult female receives wages ranging from Rs. 21 to 32 and an adult male receives Rs. 28 to 35. In some estates, as in Raj Tea Estate, regular daily wage workers are given Rs. 40 and the seasonal workers only Rs.34.

The working conditions in the tea gardens are clearly seen as being worse compared to those in other industries or the service sector. In terms of facilities, "Dhura" or temporary houses are built for the workers. Most of the "Dhura" are made up of grass, bamboo and mud and measure approximately 100 square feet. These are made available to workers regardless of their family size. Thatch is given once in two years and bamboo in four or five years for the maintenance of the Dhuras. The quantity of the raw materials provided is insufficient for the maintenance of the huts.

Entertainment facilities in some tea gardens are limited to football and volleyball; medical facilities mean to some first aid boxes, often without medicine. In the NTDC tea gardens only, a sum of Rs.200 per annum is provided as medical benefit to all permanent workers. Others have no such provisions. A small tea farmer in Jhapa deducts Rs.10 per week from the workers' wages for their medical care.

The workers in the private tea estates are made to work 10-11 hours a day as against the stipulated 8 hour daily work. Many examples of this sort were found during the survey period.

The number of monthly wage earners is very low. The supervisors, gate-men and peons are not considered as tea workers by the management and most of them are employed on monthly salary basis. A few of them are daily wage earners but there is a difference in their daily wages depending on the tea gardens. Such staff workers of the NTDC receive Rs. 47.50 as daily wage, whereas the private tea gardens generally pay these workers less (about Rs. 5/- more than other workers). See Table 4.14 & 4.15

Of the total 971 adult tea workers surveyed, 35 workers in private and 14 in public tea gardens were found to be on monthly salary. Of the remaining 922, it was found that 488 in private tea estates and 434 in public tea estates are working on daily wages.

Extra incentive wages equivalent to 65 paisa per kg is paid for plucking. In terms of over time payment, diverse practices have been observed. Many of the tea estates pay it on an hourly basis. The daily wage divided by 8 hours gives the hourly wage and it is the base for the overtime payment. However, Himalaya Tea Garden gives an additional 10 per cent of the regular wage irrespective of the extra hours worked, where as Laxmi Tea Estate adds only Re.1 per hour in the regular wage as overtime payment. On the other hand, the small tea farmers of Ilam, whenever they use labour in contract, generally provide Rs.2 per kg in peak plucking season and Rs. 4 per kg in winter, particularly in those places where it is difficult to meet the 9 kg quota for the Orthodox tea.

For permanent workers, there is a provision of 5 per cent of the total monthly wages to be deducted and deposited in the provident fund along with the same amount as contribution from the employer. Very few workers have enjoyed this facility so far.

As bonus, the management provides "Dashain Kharcha" or Dashain expenses equivalent to 4-18 days' daily wage. In most of the private tea estates, however, no such provision exists.

The management, including in the public sector, seems to be negligent in terms of health and safety aspects. In most of the tea gardens, the workers are employed on a rotational basis in the factories and in the garden areas. Even though no cases of industrial accidents have been found, some examples of respiratory problems due to tea dust and a few cases of T.B. have been found. Most of the workers fall ill due to the effect of insecticides sprayed on the plants. Normally the fixed quota of insecticide to be sprayed is 150 litre per day per person.

Due to the absence of health inspection and the lack of medication, within a period of 3 years, 2 workers were found to have died after spraying insecticides continuously for 3 weeks. Most of the workers involved in spraying complain of headache, vomiting and other problems. They are compelled to meet their medical needs on their own. According to the management of both the private and public tea estates, masks, gloves etc. were made available to the workers. However, due to the low level of awareness among the workers, they do not make use of them. The management, too, was not found to have taken much interest in the matter. Since a higher wage rate is given to the workers involved in spraying insecticide compared to other workers, most of the workers are keen to work as sprayers. They are negligent about safety and some of them said that the protective measures supplied by the management were uncomfortable to use. Child workers, however, are not employed in spraying. An eighteen year old youth had back sores as a result of carrying the insecticide container. The management in most of the tea gardens claim that their labour-management relation is good but a different situation is apparent according to the opinions of the workers. (See table 4.19). It was found that the management of Nakhalbanda is an exception compared to the others. It was found that the labour- management relation in the tea estate is extremely bad. However, the number of workers claiming unsatisfactory relationship is quite considerable in almost all the tea estates.

2.4 The Management and Child Labour

The management in the public sector has tried rigidly to discourage child labour but during the plucking season when the green leaves are plucked at Rs. 0.65 per kg, most of the working parents employ their children in order to pluck more leaves. The management have not been paying attention to this fact. Likewise, if either of the parents falls sick or is required to go away on personal business, the children very often come in as substitutes. Due to a lack of awareness regarding child labour and poverty, the working parents are dissatisfied with the management for not providing employment to their children. In the Loknath Tea Estate the Indian child workers from the bordering areas are found to be working on a daily wage of Rs. 10-15. The local workers are dissatisfied with this situation because this has deprived their children of employment.

In private tea gardens, there is a trend of child labour increasing during the plucking season and decreasing during the slack season. The children may not be kept on daily wage basis, but off the record they are found to be encouraged. Looking at the nature of the relation between child workers and management, one-third of the children say that they have been victims of misbehaviour. Due to their innocence and their inability to comprehend, most of them say that their relation is satisfactory. (See Table 5.9)

After the introduction of the Labour Act 1992, the management has become more conscious, employs only older children (as Aurat or Chhokara). This practice, however, is limited to the tea gardens in the southern border areas.