Drive even closer to the Bhutan border and you are at the Ramjhora Estate, a mildly eerie place that resembles a wild jungle more than a tea plantation. Tea plants, that should be a manageable three or three-and-a-half feet high, tower to seven feet and more, and weeds rule the roost in an estate that has remained shut since 2002.
An estimated 6,500 unfortunate people (4,105 according to the 2001 census), who have been out of work for six long years now, still live on this phantom estate in about 1,100 ramshackle huts in the labour quarters.
Since August 2002, when the Ramjhora Estate closed due to alleged unsustainable financial losses, life has turned sharply backwards... And death, disease and poverty have swiftly moved in.
None of the homes have had electricity for six long years. Or even potable water; the residents cart poor quality water from distances of 1.5 km.
Children who once went to school are now turning illiterate day by day -- 30 percent of the estate's children, or more, do not go to school, ever since transport stopped and schooling became unaffordable. Medical care, once offered by the estate, is also virtually non-existent.
Much worse -- over the last five and a half years, fatalities have gone up alarmingly, and life expectancy rates have snaked downwards, due to severe malnourishment, tuberculosis, malaria, water-borne diseases and, oddly, mishaps with elephants.
This is the grim underbelly of a $3 billion industry that has made fortunes for generations of tea planters, including the owners of this estate. And the industry on which we rely for our daily cup of tea.
Image: A shrine to a Ma Kali amidst rich tea country close to the Bhutan border and the eastern Himalayas.
Also read: All you wanted to know about the new RBI Governor
Advertisement
