i) State
Owned Tea Plantations
ii) Privately Owned Tea Estates
iii) NADSA Settlements
i)
State Owned Tea Plantations (Le-vallon Range)
There are 6 divisions of the Le-vallon Estate which is owned by the
state and managed by the Janatha Estate Development Board [JEDB].
Five of them come under the Le-vallon Estate (HMQ/ HMD/ GK/ CG/ Pitawala]
and Upper Galaha comes under Galaha Group.
ii)
Privately Owned Tea Estates
Erin is a privately owned estate. This estate has seven owners and
has a huge bank loan. Almost all the basic facilities are absent on
the estate and the estate cannot even offer daily work for the workers.
Hence they go out of the estate searching for work and get only Rs
40-60 per day.
iii)
NADSA Settlements
Para-Paha, Pupuressa Kotasa and Gurukelle were old tea estates found
to be very unproductive. Thus the lands were given to the poor (!!)
under the World Bank Scheme called NADSA [National Agricultural Diversification
Settlement Authority]. People of Gurukelle and Para-Paha struggled
to cultivate their land and to obtain basic facilities for living.
It appears that the living standards of the people of Para-Paha Pupuressa
Kotasa are far below the average standards.
The problems
of these three different situations therefore differ.
All the
problems though ultimately direct towards poverty, the origins and
the shape of the problems may differ.
