More than 7,500 extremely poor and distressed women have changed their fortune through plucking tea leaves in tea gardens of the sub-Himalayan district of Panchagarh in recent years.
The successful women are now leading better life with their family members after changing overall socio-economic condition in the officially recognised third tea zone of Panchagarh in the country.
The female tea-garden workers, including housewives, widows, divorcees and unemployed young girls said tea sector had been growing fast in the sub-Himalayan district ensuring their daily incomes and livelihoods.
They are now taking meals thrice a day, using sanitary latrines, drinking safe water, taking health care and living peacefully though they lived in dire poverty in the pasts. They are getting Tk250-300 per day average wages through plucking tea-laves.
Supervisor of Moynaguri Tea Company Limited Nazrul Islam said each of the female labourers get Tk80 for plucking the first 26kg green tealeaves per day and gets more Tk3 per kg for the subsequent each kg of the additional tealeaves they pluck.
“A woman generally plucks 80-100kg tea leaves everyday to earn a total of Tk250-300 or even more per day,” he added.
According to Bangladesh Tea Board (BTB) sources, tea farming increases every year in the sub-Himalayan district where 1.455 million kilogramme processed tea was produced in 2013, higher by 27.48% than the production in 2012.
Tea Development Officer of BTB Amir Hossain said commercial tea farming increases every year on “small-scale gardening basis” since the beginning of its cultivation launched in Panchagarh from 2000 by the then Prime Mistier Sheikh Hasina.
“A record quantity of 1.4551 million kilogramme fine quality tea was produced in 2013 against 1.141475 million kilogramme produced in 2012 in Panchagarh,” he said, adding that the production might be around 1.8 million kilogramme in the current year. The average tea production is increasing by over 100,000kg annually in Panchagarh since the year 2005.
President of Panchagarh Chamber Iqbal Kaiser Mintu said the growing tea sector enhances socioeconomic empowerment of the women through creating employment for over 10,500 people including 7,500 distressed and unemployed women so far.
“Commercial tea cultivation on ‘small-scale gardening basis’ has got stronger footage in Panchagarh as the small, marginal and medium farmers are earning better profits through selling green tealeaves to the tea processing factories,” he added.
Project Director of Kartoa Tea Associate Ltd Shah Alam Bhuiyan and Chief Operating Officer of Kazi & Kazi Tea Factory Shoyeb Ahmmed said the expanding tea sector would create more jobs for the local people including female labourers in future.
Panchagarh Sadar upazila Chairman Anowar Sadat Samrat said the distressed female tea-leaves plucking labourers were earning better to help their families through there no such opportunity for them and almost all of them were jobless in the pasts.