Guwahati:
All Adivasi Students’ Association of Assam (Aasaa) has said it will prevent ruling
Congress MLAs and ministers from visiting tea garden and adivasi-dominated areas of the state if the
state government fails to notify the minimum wage of Rs 169 per day for garden labourers.
“Aasaa suspects a deep conspiracy between the Congress government, Consultative Committee for
Planters Association (CCPA) and
Assam Chah Mazdoor Sangha (ACMS) to divert the minimum wage of Rs 169 notification and delay it further.
Though a final decision to declare the notification of minimum wage of Rs 169 has been finalized, the CCPA and ACMS are still trying to deprive tea workers from the said minimum wage as they have been doing before,” Aasaa president
Raphael Kujur said on Monday.
Aasaa will launch a massive agitation programme if the notification of minimum wage of Rs 169 is not declared at the earliest.
Though the CCPA and ACMS have revised the wage of tea garden workers up to Rs 115 per day few months ago, Aasaa sid wages of workers should be hiked up to Rs 169 per day, which is the minimum wage declared by the state government. Wages of tea workers in Assam was Rs 95 a day before it was raised to Rs 115 a day.
“We fail to understand why the state government is unable to come out with the minimum wage notification when chief minister
Tarun Gogoi himself had declared that tea workers must be paid Rs 169 as minimum wage,” said Kujur.