Oppose land distribution to workers, lose incentives: Assam CM to tea planters

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Thursday (January 1, 2026) threatened to withdraw all incentives given to tea land owners if they oppose the move to give land rights to their employees.

The state government legislated in November 2025 to make tea garden workers owners of the land they occupy in ‘labor branches’ of tea plantations. Labor lines are rows of dwellings for plantation workers in certain sections of a tea estate.

The Assam Fixation of Ceiling on Land Assets (Amendment) Act aims to remove labor lines on tea plantations from the “auxiliary land” category. The government claimed that this would guarantee “land protection” for 3.33 lakh tea worker families in 825 tea estates in the state.

“Tea workers have the right to own land in Assam after living for 200 years,” the Prime Minister said.

“Reaction of tea garden owners [to land distribution] Not very positive. “We will withdraw the incentives given to growers who do not cooperate with the government on this issue,” he said.

Mr. Sarma said the government provides various incentives worth ₹150 crore annually to tea gardens.

British tea planters brought Adivasis from central India to work on tea plantations in the 1800s. In Assam, workers belonging to Santhal, Kol, Bhil, Munda and at least 90 communities are called “tea tribes”.

“Tea tribes” and “old tea tribes” (generations no longer associated with tea gardens), one of the six communities claiming Scheduled Tribe status, constitute about 18% of Assam’s electorate. They are said to have shifted from the Congress to the Bharatiya Janata Party in the last decade.

Many tea growers in Assam are unhappy with the government’s “arm-twisting” decision to separate them from freehold land. They claim that the state government has acquired large areas from tea estates under the Assam Fixation of Land Assets Ceiling Act, 1956, and allowed these estates to hold land only for private tea cultivation and ancillary purposes (factory, houses, hospitals, etc.).

Reacting to the government’s move, the Consultative Committee of Growers’ Associations (CCPA) said: “…the land on which tea plantations are currently located is the land remaining after the surrender of surplus land. Therefore, further acquisitions will adversely affect the long-term sustainability of the tea sector…” it said.

The CCPA, which covers tea, coffee, rubber and cardamom growers, pointed out that the Assam Plantation Working Rules exclude the allotment of any garden land to be apportioned as “patta”. It was also stated that working quarters and line areas are part of statutory facilities mandated under the Plantation Labor Act, 1951 and cannot be converted into alienable land ownership.