"It's a hard life for low-wage Nepali tea workers"

Every morning, Ram Prasad Kheruwal leaves home and trundles off to work on his vintage bicycle, two pots full of sloshing water tied on either side of the rear wheel.

He negotiates the potholed roads to the tea plantation where women workers are picking tea leaves. His job is to deliver drinking water to the tea pickers, a position he has held for the last seven years since he retired.

Kheruwal, now 62 years old, used to be a tea worker himself. He grew up in a poor family, and lives in a tiny room provided by his company Budhkaran Tea Estate in Bhadrapur Municipality-7.

He makes Rs435 a day, which he says is not enough to pay for his household expenses. “We don't have our own house,” he said.

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"Four generations of my family have worked in the tea garden,” he said. "My grandfather and father have passed away. I am old now. Everything has changed except the wages. They are not sufficient for two square meals a day.”

Nepal's tea industry is one of the oldest and largest export-oriented sectors, but it has no social protection scheme.

There are no statutory labour benefits like provident fund, gratuity, bonus, housing or medical assistance to attract workers to the sector.

Officials say that as the country’s tea industry does not provide these benefits, tea has become a cheap export commodity.

Tea workers have a minimum wage system, but the rate is lower than what is provided in the manufacturing sector.

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Many workers’ families in the tea garden are in debt, most of them in deep debt. As their loans grow, they are forced to work longer.

Most of them have taken loans ranging from Rs40,000 to Rs200,000 from microfinance companies to repair their houses. The debts pile up whenever the festival season arrives.

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Fourth generation tea workers who grew up in tea gardens don't want to follow in their ancestors' footsteps, but their options are limited. The debts become so large that the next generation has to continue the work to repay them.

Most of the new generation workers do not possess citizenship papers. This too has prevented them from pursuing higher education, according to tea workers.

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Because of the low wages, a few workers have started working outside the tea gardens, but they fear the owner of the tea estate may fire them. The tea sector hires seasonal workers.

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