HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT IN TEA ESTATES OF ASSAM
Loading...
Date
2021
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
AAU, Jorhat
Abstract
Tea production plays an important role in the Indian economy. It is a key
source of foreign exchange earnings and is the largest provider of formal employment in
the country. It is a major industry of Assam. It is one of the most work serious
enterprises on the planet keeping up an enormous number of work powers in the whole
procedure of tea production i.e. from plantation of tea saplings to the final produce. It
requires workers throughout the year and involves both male and the female workers for
different jobs. The workers are the integral part of the tea industry, but also to manage
them in proper direction, the Executive board, office staff, garden staff, etc. are also
integral part of the whole system. To manage these huge amounts of human resources in
proper direction to get a good result for the benefit of the tea estate is very critical and
so that they take various major strategies. There are total 74 numbers of tea estates in
Golaghat district of Assam. Out of these, 45 numbers of tea estates have their own tea
processing unit. Golaghat district is considered as intensity of big tea estates in
comparatively high and also production of tea is comparatively high in Assam and
quality of tea is also good. Therefore, to conduct this study 5 numbers of large tea
estates out of the 45 tea estates of Golaghat district are selected randomly, which have
their own tea processing unit. The recruitment and selection criteria for different
positions of human resources were differ from tea estate to tea estate based on their
company’s rules and regulations. The tea estates follows all the guidelines provided by
the Government of India through various acts or boards to manage the workers and
employees properly in terms of proving facilities, bonuses, incentives, leaves, etc. The
working hours for all the employees and the workers in all the studied tea estates were
same i.e., 8 hours per day for both male and female. Based on tea production the whole
financial year is divided into two seasons i.e., On Season and Off Season. During the
On Season tea production increases so, the tea estates need more workers to maintain
the same level of production due to this reason, tea estates hire the temporary or casual
workers. But during the Off Season tea production declines, so the tea estates need less
workers than the On Season due to reason and to manage their income in proper way
tea estates do not hire the temporary or casual workers during the Off Season. From this
study, it was observed that in four tea estates out of five of the studied tea estates, the
percentage of workers decreased during the Off Season was in between 35-50% but in
Methoni tea estate due low number of temporary workers, the percentage of workers
decreased during the Off Season was 23%. The total cost on workers during the Off
Season in all the studied tea estates were seen decreased by 40-60 % due absence of
temporary workers and the less amounts spent on incentives. The tea estates having both
own and bought leaf factory or processing unit earned more income than the tea estates
having only own leaf factory. Due to which, they spent less percentage of their income
on the workers’ cost than the tea estates which have only own leaf factory. The tea
estates were having both own and bought leaf factory spent about 10-20% of their
income on the workers’ cost but the tea estates having only own leaf factory spent about
30-45% of their income on the workers’ cost. Also because of this reason the total
income per hectare of the tea estates having both own and bought leaf factory were
comparatively higher than the tea estates which have only own leaf factory. Also the
cost on workers per hectare showed an inverse relationship along with the registered
area of the tea estate. The kind of constraints faced by the tea estates in management of
human resources in the studied tea estates were mainly due to the geographical position
of the tea estates, socio economic nature of the tea estates, etc.