Tripura CM inaugurates tea-processing unit in Kamalpur

Kamalpur (Tripura), June 22 (ANI): Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar has inaugurated a newly installed tea-processing unit in Kamalpur town.

The processing unit will encourage more farmers to grow tea and also provide direct employment to around 250 workers, most of them tribals.

"Now with this, factory people in this area shall be encouraged to grow more tea in gardens as they shall get good price," said Sikha, a tea worker.

The factory shall also help small-scale tea growers to get a reasonable price for their tea leaves.

"We have very small garden but now we will be benefited as now we can sell tea leaf at good price of 11 rupees per kilogram. Earlier, we got very nominal price of only four or three rupees per kilogram. Now we hope with the coming up of this factory, we can think of increasing the areas of our garden," said Matang Tonglua, owner of a small tea garden.

The fully automatic Dhalai Tea Processing Co-operative Factory is estimated to produce around 200,000 kilograms of finished tea annually, utilizing around a million kilograms of green leaf mainly produced by around 2,000 small-scale tea growers.

The processing unit costs Rs 30 million. Northeast Council (NEC), Tripura Tea Development Council (TTDC) and the Rashtriya Sam Vikas Yojna (RSVY) provided financial support and, technical support is given by Industries and Commerce Department of Tripura. By Pimaki Das (ANI)