The government has announced a Rs 100 crore relief package for workers but benefits are yet to reach the workers.
By January, when activity ceases at the tea gardens in north Bengal, 50-year-old Kunji Lohar will be among the thousands of workers who will have no income to live on.
Since April, Duncan Group that owns 14 plantations in the area, has not given wages or rations to 25,000 workers, they say.
Like most tea leaf pluckers at a tea garden in Bagrakote, Kunji has been earning meagre amounts under the 'cash patti' or cash-for-leaves system, plucking leaves for Rs 5 a kg.
The leaves are sold to 'bought leaf factories' that process tea. But all plucking will stop from January, as is the norm in north Bengal's tea gardens as will the workers' paltry earnings.
Under 'cash patti', Kunji makes between Rs 70 to Rs 100 a day. It is almost the same as her normal wage of Rs 120 but without the additional rations, firewood, houses maintenance and water supply livelihood is hard.
"Once the cash patti season ends what will we do? How will we buy food?" she said, breaking into tears. "There is no food, no school for the children and we also fall sick, you know. How will we buy medicines?"
There has been no word from Duncan yet on the workers' plight. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has warned that the state government will take over tea gardens if owners fail to run them properly.
The government has just announced a Rs 100 crore relief package for workers but benefits are yet to reach the workers.
Kunji Lohar's supervisor, Kishor Pradhan, has no answer to her question. "What will happen, especially in the winters? There has been no word from the owners yet," he said.
From January, tea bushes are pruned and rested for the next plucking season that begins in April. If Duncan and the government don't step in, the tea workers of Bagrakote are in for a very hard winter.