Chennai: The BJP's Tamil Nadu unit will be conducting a protest march on Sunday against the decision of the state government to transfer the Tamil Nadu Tea Plantation Corporation (TANTEA) in The Nilgiris to the forest department.
Tamil Nadu BJP state president K. Annamalai on Wednesday said the protest would be conducted at Gudalur in The Nilgiris district.
Transferring TANTEA to the Tamil Nadu forest department would lead to several repatriated Tamil's losing their jobs, Annamalai said in a statement.
Annamalai said that more than 15,000 families who were repatriated from Sri Lanka under the Sirimavo -Shashtri pact of 1964 were dependent on TANTEA for their livelihood.
The BJP leader said that the move to transfer the land was against the political stand taken by Chief Minister M.K. Stalin before the elections. He said that the DMK had promised to regularise the temporary workers of TANTEA.
The Tamil Nadu government had recently stated that it would save Rs 5.98 crore every year by transferring TANTEA to the forest department, he pointed out, adding that the government was taking such a decision only to save a nominal amount.
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In July 2022, TANTEA which was cultivating tea in an area of 10,000 acres decided to cut short its cultivation to half in the wake of acute financial crisis.
Senior officials of the TANTEA told IANS that the organisation was reeling under financial crisis and the only possibility of saving it is to reduce its plantation area to half. The overheads and other expenses can be brought down if the plantation is cut short to half, the officials said.
Formed in 1968 by the then Chief Minister A M. Karunanidhi to repatriate the Sri Lankan Tamil refugees, the TANTEA is now in acute crisis and had made a profit only thrice in the past 15 years.