Discuss the applicability of the Plantation Labour Act, 1951.

The Plantation Labour Act, 1951, is enacted to provide for the welfare of plantation labour and regulates the conditions of work in plantations. According to the Act, the term 'plantation' means "any plantation to which this Act, whether wholly or in part, applies and includes offices, hospitals, dispensaries, schools, and any other premises used for any purpose connected with such plantation, but does not include any factory on the premises to which the provisions of the Factories Act, 1948 apply". The Plantation Labour Act, 1951 applies to the following plantations, that is to say,- to any land used or intended to be used for growing tea, coffee, rubber, cinchona or cardamom which admeasures hectares or more and in which fifteen or more persons are employed or were employed on any day of the preceding twelve months; to any land used or intended to be used for growing any other plant, which admeasures hectares or more and in which fifteen or more persons are employed or were employed on any day of the preceding twelve months, if, after obtaining the approval of the Central Government, the State Government, by notification in the Official Gazette, so directs.