Tea industry says there should be greater push to open Jan Dhan accounts for tea workers.
Anima Tanti, a 40 year old tea garden worker in Tyroon tea estate in Upper Assam's Jorhat district, wants to know how soon will she get her weekly wages.
"We got some food items through ration and we can eat rice but where do we get the money to buy vegetables? For that we need small changes and notes. If government gives us small notes then we will be fine," says Anima, a mother of two children, who earn her living as tea garden worker.
It's the same story across 850 tea gardens in Assam. Nearly 10 lakh tea garden workers in the state, many of whom are illiterate, are paid in cash every week, a practice that has continued since the days of British planters.
But the recent weekly withdrawal limit of Rs 20,000 is posing a challenge.
"We welcome Prime Minister Narendra Modi's move to demonetize the high currency but only problem that we are facing is to pay the labour wages," says Bidyananda Borkakoty, vice chairman of the Tea Board of India. He explains that "a medium sized tea garden requires about Rs 15 lakh to pay their wages" and it seems impossible to collect this amount in cash right now.
Not just Assam, paying wages in the tea growing states of South India and Bengal too has become difficult.
"Our team garden workers, our jute workers, even our 100 day job scheme workers are getting no payments. All of them are hungry," says an angry West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, though, says the current cash crunch is an opportunity for the tea industry to change its practice of paying wages in cash.
"I have examined the issues. If the wages of MNREGA workers can be paid in bank accounts, why should workers of another segment be an exception?" Mr Jaitley told NDTV and said, "All these exemptions are an excuse to bring in black money."
The tea industry admits that there should be a greater push to open Jan Dhan accounts for tea workers.
"We were told long back when Jan Dhan accounts were being opened that we should open account for our worker. We tried but somehow workers unwilling to open these accounts. Perhaps we didn't push hard enough," says Prabhat Bezboruah, who owns over a dozen tea gardens.
For now, Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal has asked tea garden managements to provide free weekly ration to their workers and instructed district administration in Assam's tea belt to ensure law and order.