Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP Ritabrata Banerjee has accused that despite claims of Union Government, the creches in tea gardens run by the Centre in north Bengal are non-functional.
Mr Banerjee had posed an unstarred question at Rajya Sabha on July 25 (Friday) to the Minister of Heavy Industries regarding the issue. “Whether it is a fact that there are no operating Creche houses in Karbala, New Dooars, Banarhat and Choonabhutti tea gardens of Andrew Yule group,” he asked.
In response, the Minister of Heavy Industries, Bhupathiraju Srinivasa Varma gave a list of five creches that are functioning in these tea gardens. Notably, these tea gardens are not directly Central Government owned, but managed by Andrew Yule and Company, which is a public sector enterprise owned by the Ministry of Heavy Industries, Government of India.
After the Ministry’s response came in, Mr Banerjee issued an official statement and said that before the Monsoon Session of the Parliament begun, they had conducted a survey among the tea gardens workers of north Bengal, among many problems, non-functional creches were sighted as one of the major problems by the workers.
“Since Saturday morning our Trinamool Cha Bagan Shramik Union (TMC Tea Garden Workers Union) members have individually visited these creches and none of them are functioning. We made videos and taken photos. How did they claim these to be operating?”
