Assam Keeps Its Pickers Off the Bushes by 2 P.M. as the Heat Wave Runs On

Off the bushes by 2 p.m. again: Assam's Labour Welfare Department has extended the state's heat-wave working hours for the workers who pick your Assam, keeping the plucking day to 6 a.m.-2 p.m. instead of the normal 8 a.m.-4 p.m., the Sentinel reported. The order took effect immediately and stands "until further orders," with no fixed end date.

It is not a new schedule. The department first moved garden hours to beat the afternoon heat in a notification dated May 13, 2025, and today's order is that same schedule, continued rather than replaced. The stated aim is unchanged too: protecting the health and safety of workers who would otherwise be out among the bushes through the hottest part of the day.

6 a.m.-2 p.m. and 8 a.m.-4 p.m. are both eight-hour days. The order does not shorten the plantation day, where pay is tied to a plucking target rather than a flat wage; it moves the day two hours earlier, out of the worst of the afternoon sun, under the Plantation Labour Act's own health provisions. Assam's gardens have carried a duty of care like this since the 1951 Act first made garden welfare compulsory, long before the label "heat wave" was doing the explaining.

The schedule change comes down to the same eight-hour day, kept out of the two hottest hours of the afternoon, decided again today the same way it was in 2025.

Sources: The Sentinel, "Assam Government extends revised tea garden working hours due to ongoing heat wave".