Abstract:
The tea plantation sector has been considered to be a major source
of livelihood and employment for the population of the regional
economies. Structural changes in this sector have led to the emergence
of labour categories such as permanent estate workers, casual estate
workers and self employed small tea growers. Several studies have
attempted to understand the human development status of the plantation
workers, without much regard to these existent categories. The paper
has tried to understand the human development status, in terms of
education, health and basic amenities, of the plantation workers classified
as permanent, casual and self employed workers. The study uses a
combination of secondary evidence on the employment pattern of the
workers engaged in the estates, complemented by micro level data
collected from the tea plantations of the Darjeeling district of West
Bengal. The findings suggest that the casual workers who had lower
employment status had lower asset ownership position and hence lower
standard of living indicating their lower human development. However,
contrary to the notion of permanent workers in an organised industry
being better off in terms of employment status, asset position and hence
better standard of living; it was observed that despite their employment
status being relatively better than the casual workers and small growers,
their asset ownership position and hence living standard was relatively
poorer than the small growers. Thus, the wage workers in the estate
irrespective of their permanent or casual work status were found to be
worst off in comparison to the small growers.
