Plucking tea-leaves makes 7,500 distressed women solvent

FE Team | Published: April 13, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00

RANGPUR, Apr 12 (BSS): More than 7,500 extremely poor and distressed women have changed their fortune through plucking tealeaves in tea gardens of the sub-Himalayan district of Panchagarh in recent years.
The successful women are now leading better life with their children and family members after changing overall socio-economic condition in the officially recognized third tea zone of Panchagarh in the country.
The female tea-garden workers, including housewives, widows, divorcees and unemployed young girls said tea sector has been growing fast in the sub-Himalayan district ensuring their daily incomes and livelihoods.
Tea-garden workers Shyamoli, 30, Swapna, 35, Rehana, 18 and Sabiha, 19 said they are now taking meals thrice a day, using sanitary latrines, drinking safe water, taking health care and living peacefully though they lived in dire poverty in the pasts.
Labourers Romesa, 20, Bulbuli, 40, Marina, 32, Soheli, 22 and Halima, 30, of the same Tentulia upazila said they are getting Taka 250 to Taka 300 per day average wages through plucking tea-laves.
"We are living now better with ensured livelihoods though we had hard days in the pasts when we had no job opportunity to earn wages," said Romena, 30, Maksuda, 33 and Nilima, 38, who have been working for several years in tea gardens.
Supervisor of Moynaguri Tea Company Limited Nazrul Islam said each of the female tea-leaves labourers get Taka 80 for plucking the first 26 kg green tealeaves per day and get more Taka 3 per kg for the subsequent each kg of the additional tealeaves they pluck.
"A woman generally plucks 80 to 100 kg tea-leaves everyday to earn a total of Taka 250 to 300 or even more per day," he added.
According to Bangladesh Tea Board (BTB) sources, tea farming increases every year in the sub-Himalayan district where 1.455 million kg processed tea was produced in 2013, higher by 27.48 percent than the production in the previous 2012 year.
Tea Development Officer of BTB Amir Hossain told BSS that commercial tea farming increases every year on 'small-scale gardening basis' since beginning of its cultivation launched in Panchagarh from 2000 by the then Prime Mistier Sheikh Hasina.
"A record quantity of 1.4551 million kg fine quality tea was produced in 2013 against 1.141475 million kg produced in 2012 in Panchagarh," he said adding that the production might be around 1.8 million kg during the current year.
The average tea production is increasing by over 100,000 kg annually in Panchagarh since the year 2005, he added.
According to BTB sources, tea in now being cultivated on 3,110 acres land including 866 acres of 405 small-scale farmers, 163 acres of 15 medium-scale farmers and 2,081 acres of 21 bigger tea estates in Panchagarh.
President of Panchagarh Chamber Iqbal Kaiser Mintu said the growing tea sector enhances socioeconomic empowerment of the women through creating employment for over 10,500 people including 7,500 distressed and unemployed women so far.
"Commercial tea cultivation on 'small-scale gardening basis' has got stronger footage in Panchagarh as the small, marginal and medium farmers are earning better profits through selling green tealeaves to the tea processing factories," he added.