100 tea gardens to sign agreement on utilising Special Purpose Fund

Kolkata, Mar 18 (UNI) In a sincere effort to bring back the past glory of Indian tea industry, owners of 100 sick tea gardens will sign agreements with the Tea Board for revamping their respective gardens with the Centrally sponsored "Special Purpose Tea Fund".

This would be the first such agreement, to be signed in Guwahati on June 28, between the sick tea gardens owners and the Tea Board after nearly 400 such applications were received in the Board since the Rs 4760 crores Fund under a 15 year package was announced in October last.

To begin with the Centre had contributed Rs 400 crores as the initial corpus of the fund which would also ensure replantation in a fresh area of 200,000 hectares in various gardens in the country.

Informing newsmen here today about the Tea Board's decision to pick up 100 most severely affected tea gardens as the first beneficiaries of the fund, created to help revamp the industry to its past glory within the next 15 years, Dr Ramesh said gradually all other sick tea gardens too would receive financial help for their revival.

He said of the total about 1600 tea gardens in Assam, West Bengal and Kerala, altogether 39 including maximum 20 in Kerala, followed by 17 in West Bengal and two in Assam, were closed for long and the new fund would go a long way for their revival and ensure replantation in about 200,000 hectares of new areas during the next decade.

Referring to the volume of production of Indian tea, mostly CTC, in these states, Dr Ramesh said last year (2006) altogether 936 million kgs were produced with 50 per cent of which coming from Assam and 25 per cent each from West Bengal and Kerala.

In terms of export of Indian tea, which remained static at around 185 million kgs for the past two years, the Union Minister said all out efforts were on to improve the situation and record at least 20 per cent growth in export within the next two years. Among the emerging destinations of Indian tea were Pakistan, Egypt and Iran.

"Last year we have exported about 16 million kgs to Pakistan, two million kgs to Egypt and only about half a million kgs to Iran, while the majority of Indian tea were exported to Russia, UK, UAE and Iraq", he said.

UNI