State advice on tea tourism, land pattas

Kolkata: State land and land reforms secretary Smaraki Mahapatra said that not too many tea estates have taken advantage of the government’s tea tourism scheme.
“It’s not only about hospitality. The gamut is much larger. Other plantations such as spices and institutional infrastructure such as schools and hospitals can be planned,” she explained at the ITA AGM.On the tea pattas, she added that an entire scheme has been designed and certainly, there is no intention of the state government in interfering with any tea garden operation. “Only the unusable land will be looked at in this policy. This could be done on a garden-by-garden basis. Identification of such land will be done in a partnership,” she clarified. In six months, the state is coming up with an online tea garden management system, which will help reduce communication burden with the BLLRO office. tnn