Hill planters wonder if Tea Board has plans for closed gardens

MANAS R BANNERJEE, SNS, SILIGURI, 7 NOVEMBER 2019: While the president of the Tea Association of India (TAI), Mudit Kumar, in the presence of the Tea Board chairman, Prabhat Bezboruah and deputy chairman Arun Kumar Ray, today made submissions for the development of the tea industry, a group of planters in the Hills have questioned the Board if it has readied a road-map to reopen closed tea estates and help several weak gardens in their revival efforts.

Mr Kumar today addressed the 47th Annual General Meeting of the TAI in Kolkata.

Speaking about 'Generic Promotion.' TAI president said: "This is a gradual process and an expensive affair. The Tea Board is the ideal body that can head such an effort in India. A council like structure much like the export promotion councils could be formed, chaired by the Tea Board with representatives of the marketing arm of the industry as well as of the producers."

"The Tea Board has been making efforts to reduce the supply-demand mismatch scenario by some of its initiatives, which will certainly have some impact. It has issued orders for the cessation of production of lower quality North Indian tea from mid-December in 2018 and now in 2019," Mr Kumar said. adding, "We appeal to the Tea Board to use its good efforts with the Union Commerce Ministry to enhance support for orthodox production, so as to encourage the production and export of orthodox tea." According to him they will appeal to the Tea Board to work out an effective mechanism to implement a Minimum Floor Price for green leaf, with certain quality parameters.

"This, if properly enforced. would be useful for all the stakeholders of the industry, and would have an impact on improving quality of green leaf and the tea made," he said.

"There is no road-map to reopen closed tea estates and to help the weaker gardens for their revival. There are more than a dozen tea estates that are closed in West Bengal alone and more than twice the number that are on the brink of extinction." said a planter from Darjeeling Hills.

According to him, planters of weaker gardens are in deep trouble due to the delay in disbursing subsidies of Rs 60 Crore approximately, which have already been sanctioned to producers for the development work done as per the scheme guidelines.

"The present trend is non-issuance of fresh sanction letters and inspection reports in spite of the applicants having completed the development work as per the 12th plan guidelines." he added.

According to a senior planter, Ajay Garg, who is also the former chairman of the Siliguri Tea Auction Committee, 140 of the 277 gardens in Siliguri (Darjeeling district) and Jalpaiguri are suffering from acute financial crisis. Of them 14 -15 are closed, and a total of Rs 87 crore is still pending, and the Tea Board has not yet released subsidy, he said."We are facing a step -motherly treatment. Funds are being released for Assam tea plantations, but not for West Bengal." Mr Garg said.

"This is the first time since the Tea Act-1953 came existence that inspections are not being carried out after receiving intimation from the producers that the development activities have been completed. It is also unprecedented that sanction letters are not being issued despite the field officers having submitted the inspection reports," another senior planter said.