annual report print final.qxd - Asian Centre for Human Rights

INDIA HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT 2005 West Bengal
Lakshmi died. 54
On 22 June 2004, the West Bengal
State Human Rights Commission directed
the District Magistrate to prepare a
detailed report on the alleged starvation
deaths at Amlasole. 55 Although starvation
is endemic in most tribal areas of West
Bengal, none of the residents of Amlasole
had the Below Poverty Line (BPL) ration
cards. 56 This explains much of the failure
of the governmental programmes.
ii. Starvation in Duars
A number of tea plantations in North
Bengal have been closed down since mid
2002. In the Duars region of Jalpaiguri
district alone, there were 20 such
abandoned plantations in late 2003, which
affected more than 30,000 workers and
their families. Many owners abandoned
their gardens with connivance of local
administration and trade unions. When
labourers and families starved, neither the
government nor the unions provided
succour. These despite that they ran
several relief and anti-poverty schemes
worth crores of rupees. 57
Since some food forms part of the
wage basket in most tea plantations, the
abandonment by the management meant
that there was no food provision for the
workers. The closure of the plantations
also meant the withdrawal of electricity
supply, denying workers access to
common water tanks and forcing them to
fetch drinking water from nearby streams,
which were polluted by waste from cement
factories in Bhutan. Many workers in this
272
area have not been facing only starvation
but also significant increase in water-borne
diseases. 58
On 16 January 2004, the Supreme
Court instructed the State government to
file an affidavit in this regards. In its
affidavit on 29 January 2004, the State
government informed that there has been
no death due to malnutrition or starvation
in the tea gardens. On 16 January 2004,
however, the Coordination Committee of
Tea Plantation Workers, an apex body of
trade unions, submitted a memorandum to
the chief minister Buddhadeb
Bhattacharjee clearly stating that deaths
due to malnutrition and starvation were on
the rise. 59 The West Bengal Human
Development Report 2004 also reported,
“There has been an alarming increase in
death among workers’ households after
July 2002, when most of these plantations
closed. Most of these have been of young
children and women in childbirth”. 60
Around 400 labourers have already died of
starvation in Kanthalguri due to the
shutting down of the tea estate between
July 2002 and February 2004. 61
The West Bengal Human
Development Report 2004 also stated that
“In other plantations which have not yet
closed, there are reports of retrenching of
workers, delayed payment of wages and
mounting provident funds and gratuity
dues. Women workers, who form the bulk
of permanent workers in these tea estates
because of their role as pluckers, are the
worst affected. They increasingly face not
only poverty and possible starvation, but