Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, Nirmala Sitharaman today took a tripartite meeting in Siliguri to assess and address issues of the ailing and closed tea gardens of north Bengal. Representatives of the garden management, state officials and Tea Board officers attended the review meeting. <br/><br/>The Minister said that the Centre is working in co-ordination with the state government to find new owners for the gardens that are shut and presently not mired in litigation. The efforts are aimed to ensure that the workers not getting wages and other dues for long get their payments at the earliest, she said. <br/><br/>The Minister, currently on a three day visit to the north Bengal districts, had yesterday went to Bundapani, Birpara and Denguabari tea gardens and personally interacted with the workers and their relatives. <br/><br/>Smt. Sitharaman later in the afternoon visited the state owned Bundapani Tea Estate, in Madarihat-Birpara Bloc in Alipurduar district. Tea Board chairman Santosh Sarangi, Darjeeling MP SS Ahluwalia, Gorkha Territorial Administration, GTA, chairman Bimal Gurung, among others, accompanied her on the inspection of the garden which is non-functional for about three years. <br/><br/>Mrs Sitharaman said that this garden is under debt of about Rs 8.2 crore. Presently, 23 tea gardens are closed in Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar districts in north Bengal, they said.<br/><br/>Meanwhile, the state committee of CPI (ML) Liberation, in a press conference in Kolkata today demanded that both the Union and the state government should act on immediate reopening of the closed tea gardens in the state and act against the private owners by seizing their property.