Health insurance for tea workers likely Staff reporter GUWAHATI, Sept 1 – The Assam Government and the managements of the tea gardens of Assam are exploring the feasibility of bringing the labourers of the gardens under a health insurance scheme for providing them advanced treatment whenever required. If the scheme becomes successful, it will benefit nearly 5.50 lakh regular workers of the tea gardens.
Tea industry sources said that it is the duty of the management of the gardens to provide medical treatment to the workers and in some cases, garden workers are also sent to the nearest Government hospitals. But the problem arises whenever any worker needs advanced treatment for critical illness, as such treatments involve huge sums of money and most gardens are not in a position to bear such expenditure. Under such circumstances, a medical insurance scheme covering all the workers would be mutually beneficial for both the workers and management of the gardens, sources added. However, sources said that for that to happen, the Government of India must come forward with a new scheme or bring the garden workers under the ambit of the national scheme launched recently for the families living below the poverty line.
The issue of providing health insurance to the tea garden workers was also discussed seriously in a recent meeting of the state medical advisory board for plantation labour, which was chaired by the Labour Minister Prithibi Majhi. The Minister expressed the view that the gardens should examine the possibility of bringing the garden workers under a health insurance scheme to fulfil the health care needs as the gardens cannot shirk the responsibility of providing advanced treatment. He pointed out that the Government of India has decided to bring the families living below the poverty line under the ‘Rashtriya Swastha Bima Yojana’ and the State Government has been trying to persuade the Centre to bring the tea workers under the scheme. He requested the associations representing the tea industry also to take up the issue with the Centre to give more teeth to the State Government’s efforts.
Tea industry sources said that it might not be possible for each and every garden of Assam to go for implementing such a scheme without any help from the Centre.
Meanwhile, several other issues relating to the health care facilities of the tea garden labourers were discussed in the meeting of the advisory board and the Labour Minister stressed the need for updating the list of medicines to be made available in the hospitals of the gardens as the existing list is at least three years old. Sources revealed that the Minister also directed the gardens to use branded medicines and not generic medicines.
Majhi further said that the gardens must appoint doctors as per statute and warned that failure of any garden to do so would be viewed seriously. He said that any garden failing to appoint a doctor would face prosecution and no excuse would be entertained in this regard.
It may be mentioned here that the health care scene in the tea gardens may soon see improvement as the Government is planning to introduce a public-private participation scheme under the National Rural Health Mission for improvement of the standard of the hospitals of the gardens. A series of discussions have already been held between the Government and associations representing the management of the tea gardens and if everything goes according to plan, the scheme may be launched within this year.
