Tea industry wants more hands on the estates
Plantations workers are becoming rarity on the estates as a result of which the authorities are drawing plans to provide technical skills training to youth seeking jobs as an additional income.
The Plantation Ministry and the National Youth Services Council (NYSC) are working together to attract more youth to be trained to work on the estates as part of a plan to provide an additional income for the youth and to help the estates to find the necessary labour required.
In this respect, the authorities are aiming to establish youth teams within the respective districts that can be pooled as required for work on the plantations.
Planation Ministry officials said that training will be provided for plucking with machines or manually, weeding, regular maintenance of the fields and adding fertiliser.
Galle-Kalutara Smallholders Association Secretary Ushan Samarasinghe told the Business Times that they had proposed this idea to the authorities and a pilot project will be initiated in the Galle-Kalutara districts.
This will become a smart job opportunity for youth to join the sector as a part time employment and providing a source of additional income to the youth.
Moreover, he noted that the issues surrounding less leaf reaching the factories today will also be resolved and at the same time the number of workers on the estates could also be increased.
This additional source of income will be mainly for Samurdhi beneficiaries, retired forces personnel and even taxi drivers.
Hayleys Plantations Managing Director and Planters Association Spokesman Dr. Roshan Rajadurai told the Business Times “We are under harvesting about 25 per cent of the crop due to lack of labour.”
He noted that ideally pluckers should be working on four rounds of plucking but today with the drop in the workforce, “we are struggling to get three rounds.”
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