The Government of Assam is to initiate a new airport at Barak Valley’s Cachar, following which Daloo Tea Garden faced a massive eviction drive yesterday. Several government officials, police, etc. were present at the venue during the drive.
Supposedly, over three million plants are to be uprooted to construct the greenfield airport. There are a lot of reactions coming in, after the authorities took up the drive.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led state government has estimated to pay a sum of ₹50 crores to build the airport using 2500 bigha land of the tea garden. The owner has also agreed to go ahead with the deal.
Meanwhile, CM Himanta Biswa Sarma had in February this year announced that an airport will be built using a part of the Daloo tea garden. It is a part of developmental initiatives by the BJP-led government.
However, over 2000 workers of Cachar’s Daloo Tea Garden are protesting against it. They have been protesting since the announcement of the project, and concerned officials of the Cachar district administration reached out to them several times to convince them. But no positive!
The tea garden labourers are against the government’s decision to remove the plantation as the tea leaves provide them their livelihood. They are asking why can’t the Govt. build the airport on land where there is no plantation.
“It was done to build confidence because the government is planning to construct a huge airport. We do not intend to create fear amongst workers at all,” said Cachar SP Ramandeep Kaur to the media persons.