COFFEE PLANTATION WORKERS FROM ASSAM, BENGAL TO RETURN BACK HOME

The rain fury and its devastation in Kodagu district in Karnataka has left hundreds of migrant labourers from Assam and Bengal are in uncertain future as state consider sending them back to their states if their coffee estate owners won’t take them back.

These migrant labourers working in the coffee estates, pepper plantations and arecanut fields for more than ten years have been devastated as no one to own them. Literally they have no place to go as many of the owners of the plantations are not coming forward to take ownership of their being.

Many families are now living in ganji Kendras set up by Karnataka government in and around Somavarpete and Madikeri.

At least 150 people from West Bengal, Assam and other parts of the country, who work at coffee estates as daily wage labourers.

“We will ask the estate owners to take back their workers or else we will be sending them back to their home state,” said a Panchayat Development Officer.

The officials believe that by sending migrant workers back to their home states, they can reduce the existing load on the relief camps in the district. “If they (migrant workers) leave, then the number of people in this camp will be reduced. It will be easier for us to manage the relief operations here,”.