Covid-19: Assam government to start testing drive among tea garden workers

The Assam Labour department has issued an order and directed all districts of the state to carry out a testing drive of the tea garden workers as soon as possible.

State Labour Commissioner Ghanashyam Das said in the order copy that, "The current prevailing situation of Covid Pandemic has moved from bad to worse in all the districts of Assam. In this situation the danger of its spread in the labour lines is highly probable. Thus steps need to be initiated to prevent the spread of this pan Jamie in the tea gardens of Assam."

The government order copy, "If due to any reason there is community spread of Covid-l9 in the labor lines it will lead to a major catastrophe as the present medical facility available is not sufficient to cater to a pandemic situation in the present day scenario. Thus this might lead to high mortality.

So all officers are directed to do the needful in coordination with the district administration and convince the tea garden management and unions to carry out testing of the tea garden workers as soon as possible, so that if there is any infection it may be contained at the earliest."

According to the reports, at least 30 tea garden workers have been tested positive for Covid-19 in the state.

Assam has so far reported 38,407 Covid-19 positive cases and 94 patients died due to the new virus infection.

There are a total of 803 registered tea gardens and more than 10,000 small tea gardens in Assam and around 45 lakh daily wage labourers are working in the tea gardens.

According to the Tea Board of India report, Assam had produced 715.79 million kg tea last year.