KOCHI: In a telling reminder of the tea plantation crisis in the High Ranges, Thakur House, Fort Kochi's three-century-old Dutch-built seaside bungalow owned by the RBT (Ram Bahadur Thakur) Company, will shortly be auctioned off by the Employees Provident Fund Organisation to recover Rs.15 crores the company owes to the EPF.

The co-owner (member of the board of directors) of the company, who has been living in the bungalow with his family for some years, will soon be evicted to put the property on auction, EPF sources here said.

This would be the first time in Kerala that a residential house of a tea estate owner would be auctioned off by the EPF to recover dues. The move follows the failed effort to auction off some of the RBT estates, as there were no worthwhile takers. The auction plan highlights the deep crisis the tea plantations in Kerala, particularly in the High Ranges, have been in since the tea prices started crashing towards the end of the 1990s.

The RBT, one of the largest tea plantation companies in South India, owns nine tea estates and eight factories in the Peermade area, but all of them have been closed or abandoned for over three years. The EPF sources told The Hindu that the company owed Rs.11 crores in PF contributions; the rest was interest and penalty. Of the Rs.11 crores, over Rs.5 crores constituted some 6,000 workers' PF contribution, which the company had deducted from their salaries, but had failed to pay to the EPF.

The company had been in the red for several years; first, because of the feud between two groups within the family that owned it; and later, by the sharp fall in the price of tea that in the past five years led to the closure of several other tea estates. Many other estates, mostly the closed ones, have piled up huge PF dues and face the prospect of being auctioned off.

The sources said the RBT is the largest defaulter of PF contribution in the State and that its workforce also was one of the largest.

They said they hoped to get a decent price from the sale of the bungalow and the one-acre land on which it stood. Officials hope some major hotel group will lap it up to open a heritage hotel on the prime land that is located a few metres from the sea.

The sale proceeds would go to the PF accounts of the workers. When the dues are paid, these accounts would be treated as not defaulted so that the workers would not be denied of their benefits because of the fault of the company management.

A human tragedy

The closure of the RBT estates had triggered a human tragedy in the High Ranges of Idukki district— starvation, suicide, deaths due to lack of medical care and children dropping out of school. About 10,000 workers (both regular and casual) and their families, mainly Tamil, were left without a source of livelihood. The suicide of a schoolgirl in one of the RBT estates over three years ago had spotlighted the human tragedy and attracted political and media attention to the life of workers in the 18 estates that had closed after the tea prices crashed.

However, the misfortune of the RBT Company had started even before the tea-price fall started.

An intense feud had erupted between two factions in the RBT family over ownership. The dispute went up to the Supreme Court and is currently before the Company Law Board. The nine estates have been split between the two groups, but this is yet to be legalised. The head of the Group II and his family are the current occupants of Thakur House.

During the more-than-decade-old dispute, each faction had allegedly tried to siphon off assets and revenues, thus inspiring managers and other executives to help themselves too. There have been times when workers blockaded the owners from smuggling out factory machines and timber from the estates with the connivance of corrupt trade union leaders.

The plantation circles point out RBT estates as a classic case bad management.

The tea-price fall aggravated the company's sickness and finally led to the closure, sending some 10,000 workers out of job.

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