The Brahmaputra Is Taking the Ground a Tinsukia Estate Grows On

A tea garden does not survive its own ground disappearing, and at Dighaltarang Tea Estate in Assam's Tinsukia district, 35.48 hectares of plantation are already gone. The Brahmaputra, advancing through the Dangari channel, has taken thousands of tea bushes along with the lost land and swallowed the Purana Line, a residential section built with permanent housing on the estate's northern side. It now threatens the garden's factory, hospital and workers' quarters, the Assam Tribune reported.

The estate, under the Doomdooma Revenue Circle, supports 1,474 families: 1,360 labourers, 56 sub-staff and 58 staff members. Its factory and hospital sit roughly 300 metres (about a fifth of a mile) from the eroding riverbank.

Workers and leaders of two unions representing the estate's workforce, the Assam Chah Mazdoor Sangha and the Assam Chah Karmachari Sangha, said an embankment project completed the previous year at a cost of Rs 4 crore (about US$420,000), using geobags, sand-filled sacks laid along the bank to slow erosion, along roughly 200 metres (about an eighth of a mile) of riverfront, has failed to hold the water back. They alleged the work was substandard and that funds meant for the project were misappropriated, according to the Assam Tribune.

No estate management or government official was quoted responding to the erosion or the workers' allegations in the available reporting. With the river still advancing, the fate of the garden's factory, hospital, school and staff quarters was undetermined at the time of reporting.

Sources: The Assam Tribune, "Riverbank erosion hits Dighaltarang Tea Estate in Doomdooma, over 1,400 families at risk" (April 27, 2026); NewsArenaIndia, "Assam: Brahmaputra erosion puts 1,400 families at risk" (April 27, 2026).