Tea Industry News: Support for small tea growers

The Telegraph CM support for small tea growers - Gogoi to ask tea board to help segment; corpus fund to be formed

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Pradyut Bordoloi and Tarun Gogoi release the directory on small tea growers. Picture by Eastern Projections Guwahati, Jan 13: Acknowledging the importance of small tea growers in Assam, chief minister Tarun Gogoi today said the government would put pressure on the Tea Board of India to look after their interests. He said the board was mainly concerned about the interests of the “organised tea industry” at present. “We have been talking of the organised tea sector only and it is time that interests of small tea growers are also looked after. The government is talking of inclusive growth and in the same vein, the interests of small tea growers should be looked,” Gogoi said, while releasing a three-volume directory on small tea growers at a function here. This is the first database on small tea growers in Assam. It will help in planning policy intervention.  Gogoi said the government would compel the board to look after the interests of small tea growers as the organised tea sector was getting benefits from them. He said the board should earmark at least 25 per cent of the funds for small tea growers. Assam commerce and industry minister Pradyut Bordoloi said the government would collect cess at a rate of 25 paisa per kg tea produced by the bought-leaf factories in the state to form a corpus fund, which will be used for the welfare of small tea growers. A part of the money realised from this corpus fund will be used to get technology transfer benefits from the Tea Research Association to help the small growers produce quality tea. “The technology transfer benefits of the Tea Research Association benefits only the big players as it is expensive,” he added. The state cabinet has already approved the cess utilisation policy, paving the way for setting up of the corpus fund. Bordoloi said the small tea growers had created a “silent revolution” but had not got the benefits they should. “Almost every inch of land in Upper Assam has been taken up for setting up small tea gardens,” he added. The minister also asked the tea board to set up regional centres in Assam. The directory released today revealed that the total number of small tea growers is 68,465, which are mostly concentrated in five Upper Assam districts. Altogether 117,000 acres of land are being cultivated by small tea growers. About 87 per cent of the holdings of this segment are less than three acres and only eight per cent of tea bushes are over 15 years of age. The total production of small tea growers is 400 million kg, which is 20 per cent of Assam’s tea production.