'Adopt Assam model for paying salary to plantation workers'

While the managements of coffee and tea plantations want to switch over to cashless tran-saction for paying wages and salaries of labourers mainly in the wake of demonetisation, Karnataka Estate Labour Union has strongly opposed it.

 According to a memorandum submitted to Additional Deputy Commissioner M L Vaishali recently, the union general secretary P P S Mani stated that ‘the weekly wages and monthly payments for estate workers should be continued to be paid in cash as per the Payment Act, instead of any attempts to disburse it in the form of cheque’.

The estates in the district have been settling payments in the form of cash from the time immemorial. However in the recent days, the labourers have been instructed to open bank accounts and submit a photocopy of bank passbooks to facilitate the payments henceforth. It is an arduous task as the banks are located in distant places from their work place. Moreover, the labourers are unaware of bank transactions, he said.

According to a gazzette notification issued on November 8, the plantations are allowed to withdraw money from their bank accounts towards the payments of labourers. The  plantations in Assam have already incorporated the system by opening special accounts on the directions of their district magistrates (deputy commissioners).

The amount required towards payments will be transferred to special accounts and disbursed among plantation workers, Mani said.

Union vice president Govindan, secretary V Manikya, representative of labourers at Devan Tea Estate Nagaraj, Satish, Felix Mathais from Balehonnur Tea Estate were present on the occasion.