• Panighatta Tea Estate and Makaibari Tea Estate
• Jan 10, 2024

Darjeeling Livelihood Project

In November 2023, Mr. Hari Menon, Director of the India office of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and Mr. Anjani Kumar Singh, Senior Programme Officer, BMGF were extended invitations by Mr. Harsh Vardhan Shringla, President of the Darjeeling Welfare Society (DWS) to visit Darjeeling. The visit resulted in two significant collaborations between the DWS and BMGF. As DWS envisions a future where every aspect of life in the Darjeeling region flourishes, it has embarked on a project aimed at providing supplemental income means to the tea estate workers in the Darjeeling region and BMGF has been supporting the project through their partnership with Grant Thornton Bharat.
In January 2024, a delegation of agricultural experts from Grant Thornton Bharat visited Darjeeling and conducted a field visit to Panighatta Tea Estate, Makaibari Tea Estate and Moonda Tea Estate. Following an initial assessment of the estates some of the team members along with the local resource person from Grant Thornton Bharat stayed back in Siliguri and started their field work in Panighatta and Makaibari along with team members from DWS. In a span of two months, the project has expanded to 1450 households in Panighatta and 678 households on Makaibari. In Makaibari the nature of intervention includes 500 farm interventions (Dalle chilli and Kitchen kit), 28 off-farm interventions (Homestay circuit and social media launch) and 150 interventions through convergence (Food processing training and maize kit). In Panighatta the interventions include 1200 farm interventions (Arecanut and Kitchen kit), 100 off-farm interventions (Mushroom training and mushroom spawn kit) and 150 Interventions through convergence (Food processing training and maize kit). The kitchen kit comprised of tomato, coriander and okra. In addition to these, a 4-month skilling program on basic computer skills and data entry was launched in the Panighatta tea estate with zero cost and INR 50/day stipend. Continuous monitoring of the distributed saplings and kit is in place with required support, if needed. Lead farmers of the tea estate were identified on value chain and village basis. They will be trained into master trainers to further strengthen the tea garden workers with respect to livelihood and nutrition. Social media engagement is going on through Facebook, Instagram and YouTube page.