 "A tea garden worker plucks tea leaves inside Aideobarie Tea Estate in Jorhat in Assam, India. Photo: Reuters")
Assam will soon set up at least 71 skill development centres in tea gardens across the state. The move is aimed at increasing employability among youth in tea garden areas by imparting various skills to them.
Assam has around 71 defunct skill centres across its 800 tea gardens. The state’s chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal has directed the labour department for reactivating all these defunct skill centres lying in tea garden areas and “develop modalities to transform them into skill development centres for honing the skills of youth and make them employable for different vocations.”
Sonowal took the decision after chairing a meeting with the central committee members of Assam Tea Tribe Students’ Association (ATTSA). He said the initiative was “to bring back confidence and revive growth cycle for spearheading a paradigm of development.”
The state government would soon prepare a blueprint to revitalise these defunct skill centres. “Shifting from ever-existing hyperbole for development of tea garden areas, the present state government is committed to empower the youths of the tea garden areas and a blue print will be prepared for revitalising the skill centres to make them powerhouse for development of skills and putting them in different employment avenues,” added Sonowal.
To give the initiative a launch pad, Sonowal said that the state government will make the ground clear so that the tea garden areas can reap rich dividends from the central and state government schemes. Adding he said, “We have to add wings to the hope, dreams, and aspirations of lakhs of our people living in tea garden areas by making government schemes accessible to them”.
The chief minister also informed the central committee of AATSA that a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) would be signed between panchayat and rural development and tea garden managements where in the fitness of all the dwelling houses of the tea gardens would be assessed and upon the findings of the survey new dwelling houses would be constructed under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana. Moreover, after the ongoing land survey of the of tea garden areas, steps would be taken to develop a model line in the vacant space in each tea garden for constructing dwelling houses, added Sonowal.
Moreover, to streamline the execution of projects meant for the tea tribe communities by the sub-divisional welfare offices, Sonowal advocated for appointing project managers who would be in charge of making the inroads for effective project implementation. To ensure adherence of open defecation free areas, sanitary latrines would be constructed for every household in the tea garden areas. The meeting also decided to streamline issue and disbursal of caste certificates to the youths belonging to tea tribe community.
