A History of Assam c24.27

c24.27

The benefits which the tea industry has conferred on the Province have been many and great. The land most suitable for tea is not adapted to the cultivation of rice, and the greater part of it would still be hidden in dense jungle if it had not been cleared by the tea planters. The gardens gave employment in 1923 to 527,000 labourers. As already stated, most of these labourers have been imported from other parts of India, but this is merely because the local supply of labour is so small. The gardens provide an unfailing source of employment for local cultivators who, for any reason, may wish to work for hire. The literate classes have obtained numerous clerical and medical appointments on the gardens; and the demand for rice to feed the coolies has considerably augmented its price in Assam, and so enabled the cultivators to dispose of their produce at a greater profit than would have been possible had they been obliged to export it to Bengal. A great impetus has also been given to trade, and new markets have been opened in all parts of the province. The existence of the tea industry has been a potent factor in the improvement of communications by rail, river and road. Many of the persons who go to Assam to work on the tea gardens afterwards settle down there as cultivators, and so help to bring under the plough its vast areas of fertile waste land. In 1923 such persons held 263,000 acres of land direct from Government, in addition to large areas which they occupied as tenants of private land-holders. In the report on the Census of 1921 it was estimated that the total number of immigrants to tea gardens and their descendants numbered about a million and a third, or one-sixth of the total population of the province.