JOIN USAssam fears community spread among tea garden workers
Assam's labour welfare department fears the possibility of community spread of Covid-19 among those working in the state's tea gardens as they live in a congested manner and lack proper health care facilities.
Nearly 20 lakh people work in the state's 800-odd big tea gardens. There are lakhs of small tea gardens too.
"As Covid-19 situation has moved from bad to worse in almost all the districts, the danger of its spread in the labour lines of tea gardens is highly probable. If due to any reason there is a community spread of Covid-19 in the labour lines, it will lead to a major catastrophe as the present medical facility is not sufficient to cater to the pandemic situation. Thus this may lead to high mortality," the state's labour commissioner, Ghanashyam Das, said in a letter to the assistant labour commissioner and labour inspectors, on Tuesday.
Assam has reported 33,576 Covid-19 positive cases so far of which 8,085 are still active. At least 86 people have died so far due to the virus. Health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma recently said the total number of positive cases could cross 65,000 by the end of August.
The labour commissioner asked all the officers to co-ordinate with the district administration officials to convince the tea garden management as well as the labour unions to carry out testing drive inside the gardens to prevent further spread of the virus.