West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday said her government is ready to run Duncans Industries' non-functional tea gardens in the state's Dooars region.
"If Duncan cannot run its tea estates, they can quit. We will run the tea estates," she said at a public meeting in Alipurduar in northern West Bengal.
Banerjee said she has ordered resumption of drinking water and electricity supply to these non-operational tea estates.
The state's Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has launched a probe earlier this week over the closure of 13 tea estates of the company and non-payment of wages to workers.
Tea workers in the region have alleged that 11 tea plantation workers in the company's Bagrakote tea estate had died because of malnutrition in the past one month as the tea producer failed to disburse workers' remuneration in the past few months.
However, the company has said only one person had died.
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"The dues to the workers including certain allowances and wages have not been paid for past few months. A police case was initiated earlier on the matter and now CID has taken up the investigation of the case," said Inspector General (II) CID Vineet Kumar Goyal.
"We have registered a case against G.P. Goenka and his son under sections 406 (criminal breach of trust) and 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code," he added.
In pursuance of the investigation, the CID had summoned Goenka and his son on Monday (November 2) for questioning.
"There were some outstanding payments. We showed to them (CID) what was outstanding", the company's whole-time director M.H. Chinoy said after meeting the CID officers.