Mukhya Mantrir Eti Koli Duti Paat (Assam Tea Garden Workers' Financial Assistance Scheme 2025)

What is Mukhya Mantrir Eti Koli Duti Paat?

Mukhya Mantrir Eti Koli Duti Paat is a one-time cash assistance scheme of the Government of Assam that pays Rs 5,000 to each eligible tea garden worker and employee in the state. The scheme was notified by the Finance (Institutional Finance) Department at Dispur on 27 May 2025 under order number ECF.634072/11, and its formal English title is the Assam Tea Garden Workers' Financial Assistance Scheme 2025.

The Assamese name: Eti Koli Duti Paat, meaning "one bud, two leaves"; is the plucking standard that defines quality Assam tea, and readers searching for the scheme usually use that phrase rather than the English title. The scheme marks the 200th year of Assam tea and is framed by the notification as recognition of the contribution tea garden workers made to the growth of the industry.

Two points set this scheme apart from most welfare schemes and cause most of the confusion around it. First, the implementing department is Finance, not Labour or Tea Tribes Welfare, even though the Labour Commissioner and the Director of Tea Tribes and Adivasi Welfare both sit on the state committee. Second, there is no citizen application form to download: workers are identified from garden employment rolls, not from applications they file themselves.

Key facts

• One-time assistance of Rs 5,000 per beneficiary, paid in a single instalment.
• Around 7 lakh tea garden workers and employees targeted across all Assam districts having tea estates, including the sixth-scheduled districts.
• Total budget allocation of Rs 342 crore in the 2025-26 state budget.
• Payment by named account payee cheque, distributed by the District Administration.

Who is eligible for Eti Koli Duti Paat?

You are covered if all of these are true:

• You are a permanent resident of Assam and presently residing in Assam.
• You are a registered tea garden worker or employee of an officially recognised tea garden in Assam, and you are presently actually working there.
• You are on the roll maintained by the tea garden management, whether as a permanent or temporary worker.
• You hold an active Aadhaar-linked bank account in a scheduled commercial bank.

The notification is explicit that beneficiaries include all categories of workers and employees registered with the garden management, permanent and temporary alike. Casual pluckers on the roll are therefore not shut out by their employment category.

You cannot apply and are not eligible if you fall into any of these groups:

• Owners and management of a tea garden. This is the single largest exclusion and it is repeated three times in the notification.
• Owners of associated businesses linked to the garden.
• Small tea growers, who are covered by separate state interventions.
• Income tax payees.
• Government employees, and contractual employees of any government entity.
• Anyone who has already received similar cash assistance under any state-sponsored tea welfare scheme in financial year 2025-26. This bars double-dipping across Assam's several tea worker cash schemes.

How to apply for Eti Koli Duti Paat

There is no self-application. The route below is the real institutional process set out in the notification, and a worker's practical job is to make sure their name reaches step 1 correctly.

1. Get your name on the garden roll. Tea garden management compiles the list of eligible permanent and temporary workers and employees, excluding management, in the Annexure A format and submits it to the District Administration. Check with your garden's office that your name, Aadhaar number and bank details are recorded correctly at this stage.
2. Wait for district verification. The District Level Implementation Committee (DLIC), chaired by the District Commissioner, authenticates and approves the list. The DLIC may run its own verification mechanism.
3. Collect and fill the application form. The District Commissioner's office prints Annexure B forms and distributes them only to approved beneficiaries. A team including the tea garden manager is formed in each garden to help workers fill the form accurately and to collect the completed forms for digitisation.
4. Let the details be validated. Bank details, Aadhaar number and other particulars are validated at district level, and a de-duplication exercise is run against the submitted forms before any money is released.
5. Receive and bank the cheque. The District Administration distributes named account payee cheques. Deposit the cheque within 15 days of receipt so the credit lands while the department's funds are still held for the purpose.

An online platform is also used: a team formed by the District Administration uploads the details of beneficiaries authenticated and approved by the DLIC. That portal is for uploading verified data, not for public registration.

How much does Eti Koli Duti Paat pay, and how?

The scheme pays Rs 5,000 in a single instalment to each eligible beneficiary. Unusually for a modern Indian welfare scheme, disbursement is not direct benefit transfer to the account. According to the notification, the Finance (Institutional Finance) Department conducts data sanity checks on the approved list, processes the printing of named account payee cheques, and hands them to the District Administration for ceremonial distribution under the guidance of the Guardian Ministers.

The department undertakes to draw and hold adequate funds in the bank account for a maximum of 45 days. That window is why the 15-day deposit instruction matters: a cheque held too long risks falling outside the period for which funds are parked. The District Administration, supported by garden management, is required to make workers aware of cheque validity and the withdrawal process.

The Aadhaar-linked bank account requirement still stands, because one of the scheme's stated objectives is to promote financial inclusion by ensuring all beneficiaries have active, Aadhaar-linked accounts.

An administrative cost of Rs 20 per beneficiary goes to the District Administration for printing, form filling and digitisation, of which Rs 10 per beneficiary may be passed to the garden manager's team for their assistance. No part of this is charged to the worker, the Rs 5,000 is paid in full.

Who runs the scheme?

The Finance (Institutional Finance) Department issues SOPs, supervises and monitors the scheme. At district level, implementation runs under the direct supervision of the District Commissioner.

A State Level Implementation Committee (SLIC) is chaired by the Secretary, Finance (IF) Department, with the Director, Finance (IF) as Member Secretary and Convener, and the Labour Commissioner, the Director of Tea Tribes and Adivasi Welfare, the Director of Information and Public Relations and the SLBC Convener as members. Up to three special invitees from tea associations or the industry may attend a specific meeting for expert advice without becoming members.

The DLIC in each district is chaired by the District Commissioner with the Additional District Commissioner as Member Secretary, and includes the senior most district officers of the Labour Welfare, Tea Tribes and Adivasi Welfare and Information and Public Relations departments, the Lead District Manager, and one social worker from the tea garden community per Legislative Assembly Constituency, nominated by the Guardian Minister.

What were the key dates?

The original notification set this timeline:

• 27 May to 5 June 2025: data collection by garden management.
• 6 to 20 June 2025: data verification at district level.
• By 5 July 2025 — list recommendation and approval by the DLIC.
• By 31 July 2025: form distribution and fill-up.
• By 5 August 2025, digitisation of forms.
• Distribution of cheques; dates to be communicated later.

Cheque distribution began later than the paperwork. The Chief Minister launched distribution at Doomdooma in Tinsukia district in January 2026, with press coverage putting the reach at more than 6 lakh workers across 836 tea gardens in 27 districts. The Government of Assam has reserved the right to increase or decrease the number of targeted beneficiaries after data is collected and verified at district level, so the final count can differ from the 7 lakh estimate in the notification.

Why a worker's payment can fail

• Name absent from the Annexure A roll submitted by garden management. This is the most common cause, and it cannot be fixed after DLIC approval by adding a name directly.
• Bank account not Aadhaar-linked or not active, which fails validation.
• Name mismatch between the approved list and the bank account, which stops a named account payee cheque from being credited.
• Flagged in de-duplication, for example where the same worker appears twice across gardens.
• Exclusion triggered; income tax payee, government or government-contractual employee, small tea grower, or assistance already drawn under another state tea welfare scheme in FY 2025-26.
• Cheque deposited too late after receipt.

Grievance redressal

Each district notifies a Nodal Officer of at least Assistant Commissioner rank who applicants, beneficiaries and associations can visit in person with grievances about eligibility, disbursement or inclusion. The Nodal Officer is deliberately not a member of the DLIC and apprises the committee of the status from time to time. The DLICs themselves are charged with addressing grievances and ensuring smooth execution.

The notification also provides for a helpline and grievance redressal portal to handle complaints. No dedicated toll-free number for this scheme is published on an Assam government portal, so this guide does not quote one, approach the district Nodal Officer or the District Commissioner's office instead.

Any difficulty not covered by the guideline is resolved by the Finance (Institutional Finance) Department, which may issue further executive instructions, clarifications and amendments.