Mamata wants tea gardens to open... meeting on bonus on 21 ... teagarden workers joining duty... 15 ICSE schools in Kurseong reopened

TT, Calcutta, Sept. 18: Chief minister Mamata Banerjee today said the government had asked tea planters in the hills to reopen the estates at the earliest and pay bonus to workers before Durga Puja.

The chief minister made the announcement after a meeting with Binay Tamang and Anit Thapa, saying the expelled Gorkha Janmukti Morcha leaders had wanted to know what steps the government had taken to pacify the workers in the tea estates that have remained closed for almost the entire three-month-long strike.

"We informed them that the chief secretary had already held a meeting with tea planters and trade union leaders and made the government's stand clear. The workers should be given bonus before Puja and the planters have been asked to make the gardens functional at the earliest," Mamata said after the meeting.

The chief minister said the issues about reopening the estates and the bonus were likely to be settled at a tripartite meeting convened by the state labour commissioner with the planters and the trade unions in Siliguri on September 21.

Tamang's attempt to warm up to the garden workers by raising their issues is crucial at a time the Morcha is divided over whether to support the strike or defy it.

While the Bimal Gurung camp is against any attempt to soften the stand on the statehood agitation, Tamang has appealed to sections of the society to make a bid towards returning to normality.

The government's acknowledgement of Tamang and his concerns has added to the efforts by the expelled leader.

That a section of tea garden workers want the strike to end became evident today when some employees of Castleton, a tea estate owned by the Goodricke Group on the outskirts of Kurseong town, joined work.

"In one division of the Castleton Tea Estate, 70 of the 217 workers offered to work. They will be paid as they worked through the day," said Mohan Chhetri, a secretary of the Indian Tea Association.

Tea estate owners have voiced concern over payment of bonus to the workers. The tea industry has been among the hardest hit by the strike and has lost almost its entire production for the season.

In Kurseong, most of the 15 ICSE schools reopened for the first time today since the agitation started in the middle of June. The schools had been imparting "coaching" to students of Classes IX-XII at special camps.