The BJP-led West Bengal government is exploring ways to adapt the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) to extend housing benefits to tea garden workers in north Bengal, Panchayat and rural development minister Dilip Ghosh said here on Friday.
Speaking to reporters after a review meeting with administrative officials on panchayat affairs in Siliguri, Ghosh said one of the key eligibility criteria under PMAY is ownership of land. However, most tea garden workers reside on tea estate land and do not possess individual land titles, making them ineligible for the scheme in its present form.
“The issue of land rights is central to extending housing benefits to tea garden workers. We have learnt that Assam and Tripura have adopted modified models to address similar challenges. After studying those models, we will decide how best to implement the scheme in the tea gardens of north Bengal,” he said.
The minister’s remarks come against the backdrop of a long-standing demand by tea garden workers across the hills, Terai and Dooars for land rights or pattas over the plots on which they and their families have lived for generations. In many tea estates, workers have been residing in labour quarters for decades and in some cases for over a century. Workers from Adivasi, Nepali and other communities have consistently sought legal ownership of these homestead lands.
The previous state government had introduced the Cha Sundari housing scheme for tea garden workers, under which small houses were constructed in several tea-growing regions. While some beneficiaries received houses under the scheme, many workers showed little interest in relocating, insisting instead on ownership rights over the land they already occupied.
The earlier government had also distributed a limited number of land pattas to tea garden workers. However, the response remained lukewarm, as many workers demanded ownership of the entire plots they had traditionally occupied rather than smaller parcels of land.
In the Darjeeling hills, attempts to conduct surveys for patta distribution had triggered unrest among tea garden workers.
Following protests by tea garden workers, Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) Chief Executive Anit Thapa requested the state government to put the survey process on hold temporarily.
With the issue remaining unresolved, attention is now focused on how the BJP-led state government intends to address workers’ long-standing land rights demands while bringing them within the ambit of the Centre’s flagship rural housing scheme.