Rs 4700 cr fund launched to revive tea industry

Kolkata, May 21 : In order to revive the near moribund Indian tea industry, the Centre has launched an ambitious Special Purpose Tea Fund (SPTF) of Rs 4700 crore for replantation in tea gardens over a period of next 15 years with active cooperation from the Banking and other financial sectors.

Announcing the introduction of the SPTF with an initial contribution of Rs 100 crores from the Union government, as announced by Union Finance Minister in his budget speech this year, Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Jairam Ramesh here today said the first disbursment of the fund would be made in November this year.

Highlighting the special features of SPTF, Mr Ramesh said the entire money would be used for the purpose of re-plantation of saplings in all tea gardens in the country where no fresh tea plantation was made in over 50 years, making them absolutely useless.

Accepting the undue delay of at least two to three years in introducing the fund to revive the industry, which had been facing tremendous losses from the overseas market for the past few years, the Union Minister said while 50 per cent of this fund (of Rs 4700 crores) would be used for the revival of Assam based gardens, the remaining 50 per cent would be equally divided between gardens in West Bengal and Kerala and other South Indian tea producing states.

UNI