In Nilgiris,farmers asking for better seeds&fertilisers,tea workers calling for job regularisation and better wages. http://t.co/O0z95EjPIs

During the Nilgiris district leg of his Namakku Naame outreach tour in October 2015, DMK Treasurer M. K. Stalin ascended into the tea-covered slopes of the Western Ghats to examine the livelihood crisis of plantation labourers and small tea cultivators. Meeting with thousands of tea estate workers, predominantly women who pluck tea leaves in harsh weather and steep terrain, Stalin heard impassioned appeals for fair daily wages, statutory job regularisation, and dignified housing. Workers complained that despite backbreaking physical labour, their wages were utterly insufficient to meet skyrocketing food prices and educational costs, while government-run TANTEA estates neglected essential medical facilities and maternity benefits. Concurrently, small tea growers and temperate vegetable farmers from Kotagiri and Ooty highlighted that exorbitant fertilizer prices, lack of certified cold-climate seeds, and price rigging by bought-leaf factories had left them deeply indebted. Stalin expressed deep solidarity with the hill communities, condemning the state government's callous indifference to plantation distress. He pledged that an incoming DMK administration would revise minimum wages for plantation workers, ensure statutory social security benefits, supply subsidized fertilizers, and establish a minimum floor price for green tea leaves to protect small growers.