Trade unions appeal to extend date for receiving comments on Tea (Development and Promotion) Bill,2022
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, January 21 2022:
In a letter addressed to the Deputy Secretary to the Govt of India, representatives of various trade unions, namely, INTUC, AITUC, HMS, CITU, AIUTUC, TUCC, SEWA, AICCTU, LPF and UTUC have urged the Ministry of Commerce and Industry to extend the date for receiving comments from the public in connection with the enactment of Tea (Development and Promotion) Bill, 2022 .
It may be noted that the Bill was published on January 10 and responses from the public will be accepted till January 21 .
In their joint statement, the trade unions urged for an extension on the date stating that the hurried way the comments are sought defeats the purpose of informed democratic participation in the decision-making process.
The trade unions also pointed out several bones of contention in the newly proposed Bill.
They stated that the Bill does not assign any regulatory powers to the Tea Board, leaving it almost completely unarmed.
Further, the exclusion of Chapter 3 (Control over the extension of tea cultivation) and Chapter 4 (Control over the export of tea and tea seed) were also stressed.
The joint statement added that the Bill does not consider the impact of the opening of hundreds of thousands of tea land estates for commercial use without regulatory oversight and surprisingly, the Tea Bill also does not include the worker community as a stakeholder.
The trade unions expressed dismay at the complete neglect of the interests of rights of tea workers and the tea community in the drafting of Tea Bill 2022 .