COIMBATORE: Responding to AIADMK leader Edappadi K Palaniswami’s statement, forest minister K Ramachandran said handing over land by Tantea to the forest department would not affect employees’ work and no Tantea workers had been laid off. In a statement on November 3, Palaniswami urged the State to revoke its order to hand over Tantea land to the forest department as it would affect the livelihood of over 15,000 employees.
“Tantea will return 2,152 hectares of land to the forest department from the areas that face frequent man-animal conflict, less tea-producing areas and in the areas where there is difficulty in plucking tea leaves,” Ramachandran said on Friday.
The minister also said the present DMK government is taking efforts to revive the Tantea corporation, which was incurring losses due to “administrative irregularities” in the last 10 years under the AIADMK regime.
“We have been taking various steps for the welfare of the employees, under which Rs 29.38 crore has been sanctioned to them as retirement benefits, which were pending since October 2017, and 992 workers and 101 employees benefitted from it. We have also allotted Rs 4 crore to improve the quality of soil where tea is cultivated,” he said.
“The AIADMK government had first initiated returning the Tantea land to the forest department in 2012. From 2012 to 2019, the AIADMK regime handed over 4,710.5 acres to the department, but Palaniswami seems to have forgotten about it. The present government has given incentives to the workers, which will be increased after the corporation’s financial situation improves,” he added.
"Workers’ livelihood will not be affected by returning the land to the forest department. Also, no Tantea workers were sent away from their residential quarters and there is no need to provide compensation to them. However, Tantea has sent notices to the retired workers in an attempt to shift them to accommodate other workers. This is usual procedure and even the AIADMK government followed it," he further said.