Shaky start for Asom tea, all eyes on weather

Guwahati, Apr 18 (UNI) If the initial reports of the new season are the slightest indicators, the Asom tea industry has to brace up for some hiccups in the year ahead.

Having faced with inconducive rainfall and temperatures, the production in various tea gardens of upper Asom has been substantially low as compared to the same period in the previous year.

Guwahati Tea Auction Centre Secretary Jayanta Kakoty said "the quantum of tea sent to the Centre for auction has been low so far.

'' As compared to the last season, there has been a shortfall of around 12,500 packages (around 30 kg each) in the arrivals, counting from the first week of January,'' he said.

This year's fortunes of the tea industry does not seem very encouraging. ''The weather, which has not been favourable so far, will decide the prospects,'' Mr Kakoty said.

Around 30 per cent of the Asom tea is sold through the Guwahati Tea Auction Centre.

Sources in the industry said the rainfall in the last has been substantially low. Given this, there were also impediments in manuring, resulting in the low yield.

Last year, the tea production of the state was 483.6 million Kgs, out of which 148.5 million Kgs were sold through the Guwahati Auction Centre at an average price of Rs 68.06 per Kg. The production last year was up by 9 million Kgs as compared to the previous year, and even the average prices shot up by Rs 7 per Kgs.

While the players this year are not that enthusiastic, the intermittent downpours in the last week came as a succor for the industry.

Brokers said, till now there have been no good signs, but they hoped that ''things would improve''.

''As the production has been less, we should have got more prices.

But it is not so. Rather the prices too have gone down,'' a broker said requesting anonymity.

Asom witnessed a drought-like situation last year, which affected around 5 lakh farmers, including small tea growers, in 22 districts across the state.

Meteorologists are also skeptical as to what the weather God has in store this year.

About 15 per cent of the world's total output of tea comes from the tea gardens of Asom, which provide employment to more than a million people. Tea cultivation occupies a little less than a tenth of the cultivated area of Asom.

Small farms account for 10 per cent of the tea production in the state.

UNI