Tea production in the organised sector in declining in India due to
ageing bushes and little investment and the country may have lost 50
million kg of tea in the past 10 years.
At the same time it is
rising in small holdings which account for nearly 28 percent of the
total tea cultivation area and 26 percent of the country's total
production.
"India lost production of 50 million kg of tea during
the past 10 years in the organised sectors. Old bushes and scarce
investment are the key reasons for reduction in production in the
organised big holdings," Tea Board of India executive director Rakesh
Saini told IANS.
According to him, 1,686 big gardens (organised
sector) produce 723 million kg (from 416,027 hectares) of tea yearly,
accounting for more than 74 percent of the country's total production.
Saini
said: "The number of small tea growers in the country would be around
250,000, producing 257 million kg of tea (from 162,431 hectares)
annually, accounting for more than 26 percent of the country's total tea
production."
The concentration of small tea growers is largest
in Assam, followed by West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Tripura,
Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Meghalaya and Bihar.
Saini
said that domestic consumption of the beverage is rising although the
per capita consumption in India is less than in other countries.
He
was here for the setting up of a tea board office in Agartala. Tripura
Industries and Commerce Minister Jitendra Choudhury Monday laid the
foundation stone of the office, to be built at a cost of Rs.2.07 crore.
Choudhury
said the Tripura government has urged union Commerce and Industry
Minister Anand Sharma not to shift the tea board office for small tea
growers from Guwahati to Dibrugarh in eastern Assam.
"If the tea
board office for small tea growers move from Guwahati to Dibrugarh it
would make inconvenience for them to take the benefit of the tea board.
Hence it would affect production and cultivation of tea in other
northeastern states," he added.
The Minister also said that some
tea garden owners are trying to use the stipulated land for rubber
cultivation to earn more easy profit. "The Tripura government would not
allow this. Tea garden land cannot be used for other purposes according
to the act concerned."
Tripura Industrial Development
Corporation chairman Pabitra Kar said tea cultivation through small tea
gardens started in the state in 1994. "Now there are over 7,000 small
tea gardens."
Tea plantations in Tripura date
back to 1895. In fact, Tripura is categorised as a traditional
tea-growing state, with about 58 organised tea estates producing about
nine million kg of tea every year. This makes Tripura the fifth largest
among the 14 tea producing states after Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu
and Kerala.
Kar, a former minister, said that with over 10,000
hectares under cultivation, Tripura accounts for six percent of total
tea area in India and four percent of total production.
