International Journal of Innovative Research and Development

Abstract

Post 1990, the emergence of the drive towards opening up the diverse sectors to private players, and the consequent impact of this has been felt by those sectors that are labour intensive industries. With the gradual privatization of tea gardens the responsibilities of welfare schemes which earlier were on the shoulders of the State gradually changed hands to the private agencies. The tea gardens that were originally earning profit, suddenly were suffering losses and the impact of it was in the form of lock outs declared by the owners. The cruellest face of such cases has been rampant in the form of hunger and deaths which is a common incident, especially in the closed tea gardens of Dooars, in North Bengal. However, there are some NGOs who have filled in the space of support provider in the absence of state initiative or not so active state role, and are therefore, taking up the role of providing support system in the form of livelihood support to the workers of these tea gardens. The paper intends to probe into the nature of the welfare schemes run by some of the select NGOs in these tea gardens. In the process, this paper also intends to look into the role and intention of the NGOs, especially focusing on wherefrom the NGOs receive the funds? Are the NGOs interested to only play the role of support providers or do they have deeper intentions of collaborating with local political parties and engaging in power politics?

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