Out of 55 tea garden estates in Dooars, only six have workers with bank accounts, according to data published by the local branch of Indian Tea Association. Soon after demonetisation, , the government and the RBI had asked tea garden managements to open bank accounts for workers to electronically transfer wages. Workers’ unions had complained areas where tea gardens were located did not have enough banking infrastructure.

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According to a source in the association, more than 1.10 lakh workers are employed in 55 gardens, and around 25,700 are yet to open bank accounts. Moreover, while the process of installing ATMs and other banking facilities has begun in some gardens, 36 tea estates have no idea when such services would be available to them.

“Specific instructions from RBI and Centre said banks had to provide open infrastructure like ATMs, micro-ATMs, extension counters and branches…This was so workers did not have to travel long distances for cash. But ATMs have only been installed in two gardens, a customer service point has been opened in one estate,” added the source.

Around 36 per cent of workers do not have Aadhaar cards – required to link them to bank accounts, while adding that there are 31,874 workers whose biometric enrollment for Aadhaar is yet to be done. The biometric enrollment has been done for another 8,253 workers, but they are yet to get the Aadhaar cards.

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