New Bill puts Assam tea garden workers on path to get ownership of residential land

Assam Tea Tribes and Adivasi Welfare Minister Rupesh Gowala said, “Today is a historical day for our tea garden brothers and sisters. Our tea worker friends who have been deprived of their rights throughout the decades will get rights to their land… Under this law, the government will acquire the land of tea garden labour lines and allocate the land to the workers. After a long wait of 200 years, the owners of the land will be the families of 3.33 lakh tea workers.”

The amendment excludes labour lines as land which has purposes ancillary to special cultivation, which will enable the government to identify it as “surplus land” under the ceiling Act. The amendment states that the government shall acquire land under labour lines after which it shall “give settlement of such lands to tea garden workers residing and in occupation of such lands”.

“At present, tea garden workers residing in labour lines occupy land without clear legal title or statutory protection. The amendment, by excluding labour lines from ancillary purposes and providing for preferential settlement with tea garden workers, secures their land rights. This will ensure long-term housing security and reduce vulnerability to displacement,” says the statement of objects and reasons in the legislation.

It states that the extent of land per family “shall be such as may be notified by the Government from time to time”.

It also states that these lands will be heritable but not transferable for a period of 20 years, at the end of which the sale, transfer, lease, gift or alienation of the land will be permissible but only to a tea garden worker residing in the same tea estate.