Tea Board seeks Rs 1k-cr govt aid; eyes STG push

Kolkata: The Tea Board of India has sought a Rs 1,000-crore fund for the industry, “mostly focussing on the development of small tea growers (STG)” in its next five years’ budget plan (starting 2022-23), which it has submitted to the Union commerce ministry a couple of months ago. The sector regulator has also asked for reintroduction of “same level of subsidy” on orthodox tea production, which might boost the industry’s prospects in the exports market.

Talking to the media on the sidelines of 139th AGM of the Indian Tea Association (ITA) on Thursday, Tea Board chairman Saurav Pahari said that focus has been on handholding STGs, who contribute 52% of the total production in the country. “It is time we also focus on their well-being as much as we did for the big estates in the past. Economic aid and technology intervention for the STGs are the main objectives for now and would receive at least 50% of the proposed funding,” Pahari added.

Elaborating other areas earmarked for this proposed fund utilisation, Pahari said: “Orthodox subsidy, technical subvention such as uplift of irrigation system, drone- and IoT-based operations, R&D, a package to increase domestic and international consumption of tea through promotion and other initiatives will come in the order of importance.” However, on replantation of age-old tea bushes, the Tea Board chief said, “The estates seemed not too interested in this exercise. So, we have said that we will focus on plantation development but not entirely on replantation.”

The Tea Board will soon hire a consultant for conducting a detailed study on domestic tea consumption and prescribing some remedial measures, said Pahari.

He said tea exports had plummeted at some point but are now picking up. “When exports were down, a lot of tea was dumped in the domestic market. But Indians’ per capita tea consumption is just 830gm. If it goes up to at least one kg, our producers will start getting good prices,” he added.

The Tea Board of India seeks to change Indian tea’s positioning from a commodity to a brand. “We could have done a far better job in branding Indian tea across the globe. The Darjeeling tea industry must invest in infrastructure and must come together. We should no longer hear a Sri Lankan Darjeeling Tea or a Russian Darjeeling Tea. We have proposed to keep a portion of the budget for overseas branding, too.”

Pahari also said that advanced technology has to be adopted to optimise the use of labour in the industry, while production costs have to be kept within control to ensure profitability.

Meanwhile, ITA chairperson Nayantara Pal Choudhuri has been also appointed as the first woman chairperson of the Asia Tea Alliance (ATA) where the industry bodies of Sri Lanka, China, Nepal and Bangladesh are members. ATA along with Solidaridad Asia will work on issues like tea promotion, consumption and exchange of technology.