Bhupen Kumar Baruah, Bhanita Das, Chitrani Medhi and Abani Kumar Misra
The adverse effects of hazardous chemicals used in tea gardens as well as the significant potential risks to the human life and its supporting systems are not properly recognized till now in Assam. Injudicious use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides in the tea gardens have become a cause for serious concern as it has adverse effect on soil and water environment and on its populations. Economics, social studies and environment aspects are integrated into the development processes presently by developed countries. But in India, particularly in Assam practically still there are big gap among them. This study focuses on use of common chemicals in tea gardens with hazardous characteristics and their hazards impact on populations and environmental awareness among tea labors in Golaghat district of Assam, India. It evaluates the awareness of a group of 250 tea labors from 8 tea gardens. The 250 respondents were selected based on stratified random sampling method. A set of questionnaire which comprised of 15 questions was applied as instrument for data collection. The study reveals that there a significant difference observed between two gender groups while environmental awareness results indicated that there were significant differences among different levels of education. The study concluded that increase on age and educational level would improve the level of awareness among the labors.
