Bandapani Tea Garden

As per the 2011 Census of India, Bandapani Tea Garden had a total population of 5,390. There were 2,756 (51%) males and 2,634 (49%) females. There were 741 persons in the age range of 0 to 6 years. The total number of literate people in Bandapani Tea Garden was 2,940 (63.24% of the population over 6 years).^[4]

Established in 1895, Bandapani Tea Garden was closed in 2013. The 1,000 hectare tea garden used to employ 1,667 people and produce 6 lakh kg of tea annually. It was originally owned by the Darjeeling Dooars Plantation Limited. They sold it to Mohta Enterprises. Then it was taken over by Sarada Pleasure and Adventure Limited, a Siliguri-based hotel, who had no experience in running a tea garden.^[5]

Adivasis from Chotanagpur form a sizeable section of the workers in the tea gardens in the area. Dumka, Hazaribagh, Ranchi and Chaibasa formed one of the biggest catchment areas for tea garden labour in the twilight years of the 19th century. "The notorious coolie trade under colonial rule exploited the dispossession, indebtedness and despair of Adivasis to transport them, often by force or deception, as far as Assam or the Dooars – or even further afield to plantations in Trinidad, Guyana, South Africa and Malaya. A century and a half later, these communities are on the move again. The moribund economy of the Dooars region has rendered these communities vulnerable yet again."^[6]

The state government has been providing a monthly assistance of Rs.1,500 to each permanent worker of the locked out gardens. There are about 10,000 jobless workers and their families in nine closed tea gardens in the dooars. Everybody is assured of two plain meals in a day.^[7][8]