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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Cashless bliss? Tea belt deflates dream -Avijit Sinha & Anirban Choudhury

Cashless bliss? Tea belt deflates dream -Avijit Sinha & Anirban Choudhury

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published Published on Dec 13, 2016   modified Modified on Dec 13, 2016
-The Telegraph

An indication of how far Narendra Modi could be from the dream of making India a predominantly cashless economy is available in a survey done by a tea planters' association in the Dooars, a tribal belt that employs lakhs of Bengal's workforce in tea estates.

The survey done by the Dooars Branch of the Indian Tea Association (DBITA) in its 55 member gardens of the 80-plus estates dotting Japaiguri district has thrown up these numbers:

• Around 30 per cent of the 1.12 lakh workers in these 55 gardens have no bank accounts

• In around 60 per cent of the estates, the nearest bank is at least 7km away

• In around 50 per cent of the gardens, the nearest ATM is at least 5km away

The RBI, which held a meeting on November 21 with banks in the tea belt, made it clear that wages could be paid in cash only for two fortnights. By then garden owners should have opened accounts for all workers.

In the minutes of the November 21 meeting, the RBI said a cash waiver that was allowed to tea gardens that month "will be available for two fortnights only, during which tea gardens will ensure opening of accounts by workers".

Workers are paid every fortnight in most tea gardens.

Payments of the first fortnight of November have been made in most estates. A few gardens have disbursed payment for the second fortnight of November.

A tea garden union leader cited a problem with distance that workers would face if they had to travel several kilometres to get his wages from banks. "Workers will have to go to banks on a working day. Given the distance of the banks from the majority of gardens, it would mean at least a half-day affair," Ziaur Alam, the convener of the Joint Forum that is the biggest conglomerate of garden unions, said.

The worker would end up losing a day's pay to collect wages of a previous fortnight.

Most of the workers got their due wages a fortnight after the date they were supposed to be paid in November as garden managements scrambled to find ways to withdraw cash above the RBI-imposed weekly ceilings.

Please click here to read more.

The Telegraph, 13 December, 2016, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1161213/jsp/siliguri/story_124411.jsp#.WE-Lh3371_k


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