Tea garden workers are fearing that they would have to face a financial hardship if the government sets up a special economic zone at Chunarghat upazila, Habiganj.
Advisor of the Tea Labour Union Swapan Santal said they earned their livelihood on the tea gardens and cultivating the government land.
“We will face acute financial crisis if the land is acquired,” said Kala Pathro, a worker.
Tea garden workers at Chunarughat in Habiganj have been continuing their movement since December 12, last year protesting the plan taken by the government to establish special economic zone (SEZ) on hundreds of acres of land at Chandpur and Begumkani tea estates.
According to local sources, around 24,000 workers of 23 tea gardens staged a two-hour strike yesterday as part of their daily programme until their demand is met.
Nreepen Pal, joint secretary of the district Tea Workers’ Union and its advisor Kanchan Pathro, said they would go on indefinite strike from January 25 across the country, if their demand was not met during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Sylhet visit on January 21.
Ram Vajon, secretary of the union said the workers from over 23 gardens in Brahmanbarhia, Habiganj, Sylhet and Moulvibazar had announced solidarity with the protesters in Chunarughat and enforced a full-day strike.
Tea garden workers recently issued a seven-day ultimatum to the authorities to meet their demand for cancelling the SEZ.
The protest plan was announced at a rally organised by the ‘Committee to Protect Chandpur Tea Gardens Land’ and Tea Workers Union on Saturday.
The government has planned to establish five special economic zones across the country, one in Habiganj, under its Economic Zones Development Project at a cost of Tk81.95 crore to attract both foreign and domestic investments.
Earlier, workers of Chandpore Tea Estate have urged Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to cancel the government’s plan to establish an economic zone on hundreds of acres of land.
They also submitted a memorandum to the prime minister through Chunarughat Upazila Nirbahi Officer Masudul Kabir, demanding cancellation of the move as the establishment would threaten the livelihoods of thousands of tea workers there, said Sadhan Dulal, president of Bangladesh Tea Labour Union’s Chandpur tea garden unit.
Tea workers from other gardens also filed such memorandum to their respective municipality and upazila nirbahi officers, making the same demand.
The tea workers have been protesting the decision saying that their livelihood will be at stake once the economic zone is built. Most of the tea workers are very poor, earning as low a daily wage as Tk69; they largely depend on the cultivation of food grains on the land now allotted to the economic zone authorities.
When contacted, Shamim Ahmed, manager of Chandpur Tea Estate, said: “We have to incur losses due to the movement of the workers.”
Deputy Commissioner Sabina Alam said: “We will sit with the workers and local political leaders soon.”
Meanwhile, the Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB) and the Socialist Party of Bangladesh (SPB) jointly organised a roundtable discussion in this regard at the CPB’s central office in the capital, where both the parties declared solidarity with the protesting tea workers.
“This is a conspiracy against the tea workers who have worked on infertile land over more than 150 years and turned it into arable land. Now a group of vested interest wants to take away the workers’s only source of livelihood,” said a press statement issued by the CPB and the SPB.
“The government should cancel the plan and allot some other, infertile land for the economic zone. Let the tea workers have their land, because if anyone has a right over that land, it is the tea workers,” the statement said.