IIT-Kharagpur to do satellite survey of tea gardens

Kolkata, Jul 29: IIT-Kharagpur will prepare a comprehensive satellite survey of all the small tea growers in Bengal and Assam and a land-use atlas of these two states.

Speaking to mediapersons here, Union Minister of State for Commerce&Industry Jairam Ramesh said the two surveys would be completed by this December and March, 2008 respectively.

''The survey of the small growers will help the Centre to get a comprehensive picture of the small growers in these two states. We will get a detailed picture of the status of the small growers through this survey that will help us to intervene into the matter,'' he said.

Of the total tea grown in the state, around 10 per cent come from small growers in Assam and 25 per cent comes from the small growers of Bengal.

''Small growers have changed the face of tea industry in the recent past. However, they lag behind in various areas including R&D and engineering processes,'' he said.

The land-use atlas would be prepared by the March next. This atlas would chalk out an elaborate picture of land-use pattern in Bengal and Assam.

Meanwhile, IIT-KGP would also prepare satellite imagery to gauge the progress of replantation in the tea gardens under Special Purpose Tea Fund(SPTF).

UNI