MP Bista slams tea tourism move

VIVEK CHHETRI , TT,  04 Nov 2019, Darjeeling: Darjeeling MP Raju Bista on Sunday criticised the Bengal government's decision to allow tea garden owners to use more land for tourism and called on the state to convene a meeting of "all stakeholders" to reconsider the move.

On Thursday, the Bengal cabinet had decided to allow tea garden owners to use 15 per cent of the total holdings for tourism. Earlier, the ceiling was 5 percent. The state has, however, attached some riders, which include capping the permissible land at 150 acres.

Bista, in a statement, said: "Diverting land from tea plantation in the Darjeeling hills, Terai and the Dooars and then depriving workers of their land rights will never help in reviving the tea industryDuring the recent Lok Sabha and Darjeeling assembly byelections, the TMC-Binay Tamang camp of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha had made land rights a major plank of the campaign.

The MP said the decision was a "short sighted," "piecemeal" and fragmented" and it Raju Bista was "aimed at appeasing one section of the industry" at the cost of other. He also said the move encouraged owners to abandon gardens and hold on to tourism projects.

"What will happen in the future after they permit thousands of crores of investment in tourism and the owners decide to abandon the gardens, but retain the tourism operations?" Bista asked.

He appealed to the government to "call for an all-stakeholders meeting to rethink over the decision" so that "we can all contribute towards laying a foundation for a sustainable future of tea industry".

CITU leader Saman Pathak said: "The decision is completely against the growth and development of the tea industry itself.".