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Kerala tea planters cup of woes brimmeth over

Suresh Menon in Kochi

They're dying of poverty or starvation in Kerala's tea plantation belt. During the past four weeks, at least eight people died at Peerimedu and Munnar talukas in Idukki district.

Velankanni, the 14-year-old daughter of plantation workers at Pasumali tea estate, hanged herself when she found that her parents could not afford a set of school uniforms - her school had warned her repeatedly that she'd have to be dressed in uniform or be thrown out of school.

Manikantan, the seven-year-old son of a plantation worker at the same estate, died of starvation.

Mathai, a labourer at Granby estate, swallowed poison when he could not find money for medicine. Chudala at Wagamon estate near Elappara hanged himself to death when he could not bear his hunger pangs any longer.

While many have no work and no wages, others have jobs but no wages. Several others have been living on a subsistence allowance for months.

Some of them have been even denied this as managements have abandoned plantations and estates.

As Kerala's tea estates are caught in a tailspin, the horror stories pour in - of deaths and stark human misery in a state that is otherwise perhaps among the most prosperous in the country.

Tea is grown in 40,000 hectares of land in the state. Kerala produces CTC (crushing, tearing, curling) tea - the crisis is confined to this tea.

So Assam, which produces higher quality orthodox varieties, has escaped unscathed.

The industry in Kerala employs 1,70,000 workers ­ 45,000 permanent and 1,25,000 on contract. Yet around half the 32 tea factories at Peerimedu taluka have downed shutters.

Those that are open still may follow suit any moment because they are bleeding financially.

Most companies that own tea plantations in these areas are in a deep financial crisis and banks are reluctant to bail them out because their loans to them are already classified as non-performing assets.

Take Peerimedu Tea Company, for instance. Its total outstanding dues are Rs 7 crore (Rs 70 million). Of this, Rs 2.5 crore (Rs 25 million) has to be paid as wage arrears to its 1,250 workers, Rs 4 crore (Rs 40 million)to two nationalised banks to repay term loans and Rs 50,000 has to be paid to the employees' provident fund.

Even the state-owned Plantation Corporation of Kerala is in a financial crisis -- it hasn't paid salaries for the last few months.

The Kasaragod collector has suggested bringing the company's estate in Cheemeni and Perambra under the rehabilitation programme for scheduled tribals.

Only large companies like Tata Tea and the A V Thomas group, which market their products directly, have been able to survive on the strength of their professional management, strong fundamentals and other intrinsic strengths.

What explains the industry's plight? Kerala's tea plantations have been sliding downhill for the past 12 years.

According to Anil Kumar Prabhu, chairman of the Kochi-based Tea Traders Association, it all began when India's tea exports started crumbling with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Kerala's biggest market for tea.

The CIS states became price sensitive and many fly-by-night operators from India started exporting low quality tea to these countries.

Some traders blended cheap Indonesian and Vietnamese tea and passed this off as Indian tea to Russian buyers. The result?

"Gradually we lost a big export market," says Prabhu. What is more, Russia, which used to consume CTC tea has started switching to orthodox varieties and imports orthodox tea from Sri Lanka and other countries, he adds.

An industry source who did not wish to be identified says the situation worsened when, under a SAARC agreement, New Delhi allowed cheaper tea from Sri Lanka - tea is more inexpensive there because the government meets the welfare bills of plantation workers - to be imported freely, levying just 7.5 per cent customs duty on it. So Kerala's tea started losing ground at home too - a double whammy.

At the human level, Opposition leader V S Achuthananadan says that the deterioration in the living conditions of workers has been compounded by many managements not having remitted the provident fund contributions of workers.

Otherwise, labourers could have availed of PF loans to tide over the crisis.

Last Monday, while visiting estates to assess first hand the living conditions of workers, Achuthanandan announced that the CPM would be distributing rice to the needy.

The CPM state committee has decided to distribute 100,000 kg of rice in the first phase of relief operations - 89 bags of rice were rushed to Peerimedu last Monday.

Not to be outdone, the state government has decided to provide free food to workers and the services of government doctors twice a week in hospitals that have closed.

What of the future?

Prabhu feels that Kerala's tea plantations can come out of the crisis if they focus on producing higher quality orthodox varieties instead of CTC tea because orthodox tea will open up global markets for these plantations and factories. That could take years.

Meanwhile, labour on tea estates will continue to face hunger.

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