Nearly a year after human-rights groups complained about working and living conditions on tea plantations run by Amalgamated Plantations Private Ltd., the World Bank has ordered an inquiry.
APPL, a joint venture of Tata Global Beverages Ltd.500800.BY -1.67% and the International Finance Corp., the private-sector lending arm of the bank, employs around 30,000 people on 20 plantations in the northeastern state of Assam.
Tata Global Beverages owns the Tetley Tea brand.
Rights groups, including People’s Action for Development and Nazdeek, told the bank’s Compliance Advisor Ombudsman that the plantations weren’t adhering to Indian laws.
Many tea workers earn less than $2 a day and it “is impossible to properly feed themselves and their family with this amount of money,” the complaint said. “As a result, many workers suffer from malnutrition.”
Ashoke Bordoloi, chief financial officer of APPL said, “We look after our workers and are compliant with the law.” He said the company would extend “full cooperation” to World Bank auditors.
In 2009, Tata Global Beverages received an investment of $8 million from the IFC to address issues concerning workplace and community health and safety.
But civil rights groups allege that the money hasn’t been used.
“Facilities like living quarters, safe drinking water and toilet facilities and proper education for them, have not yet been provided by the management,” Barnabas Kindo, social activist working with PAJHRA, a group working for improving living conditions of tribal people in the northeast told India Real Time Wednesday.
via Labor Issues Prompt Inquiry into Tata’s Tea – India Real Time – WSJ.
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