Occupational health hazards of tea garden workers of Hajua and Marangi tea estates of Assam, India

Occupational Health Hazards refer to the potential risks to health and safety of workers in their workplaces. Tea garden workers are susceptible to a number of hazards in their workplaces due to physical, biological, mechanical, chemical and psychosocial factors. The present paper tries to examine the occupational health hazards faced by the tea garden workers of Hajua Tea Estate of Sibsagar District and Marangi Tea Estate of Golaghat District in Assam. Factors such as income, educational levels of the workers, availability of medical facilities in the tea gardens, hygiene and sanitation, general awareness and perception about the different occupational health hazards have been taken into account while arriving at the findings of the study. It has been found from the study that the tea garden workers are educationally lagging behind, health facilities are not adequate and safety measures are lacking. This has resulted in a number of work-related accidents and the workers are found to suffer from a number of health problems.

The study has been conducted mainly with the help of primary data collected with the help of a questionnaire. Altogether 72 workers, both male and female of Hajua Tea Estate and 140 workers of Marangi Tea Estate have been surveyed by Random Sampling Method. In addition, secondary information has been collected from sources such as books, journals and the Internet.