Jhapa, August 13 :

Workers have forced indefinite closure of all tea estates and factories in the eastern region from today to press the management to fulfil their demands.

The closure has affected some 40,000 persons and cause loss of about Rs 10 million daily.

All Nepal Tea Estate Workers’ Association, Nepal Tea Estate Workers’ Association and Nepal Independent Tea Workers’ Union had been staging protests from August 3 to press the management to fulfil their 21-point demands.

The demands include fixing Rs 5,000 as monthly wages of workers, providing Dashain bonus, making the provision of provident fund, providing wages for the duration of their agitation, among others.

The tea workers and the management had held talks for four times, last time yesterday, but could not reach an agreement, said chairperson of Nepal Tea Estate Workers’ Association, Deepak Tamang, adding that they announce closure of all tea estates from today.

He said the workers hoped that their demands would be fulfilled through agitation only because several rounds of talks did not yield.

He was of the view that the government should make an effort to solve the problem.

Meanwhile, chairperson of Tea Producers’ Federation, Chhatra Giri, said the government has to help tea producers to fulfill the demands of workers.

“The government has to give discount in income tax, VAT, fertilizer, electricity tariff and loans and then only we can fulfill the workers’ demands,” Giri said.

According to Nepal Tea and Coffee Development Board Regional Office (Biratmod), tea plantation spreads over 8951 hectares of land in Jhapa, 4773 hectares of land in Ilam, 814 hectares of land in Panchthar, 348 hectares of land in Dhankuta and 139 hectares of land in Terhathum.

While coffee plantation is spread over 779 hectares of land in the region.

Of the 115 tea estates, 17 are run by the government and there are 40 tea-processing plants in the region.

Also today, the tea producers discussed the issue with the representatives of seven- party alliance and informed the leaders about the problems faced by the tea estates, factories and tea workers in Bhadrapur, said, chairperson of Nepal Tea Producers Association, Chandi Parajuli.