Centre blamed for sorry state of tea industry

Darjeeling: The Consultative Committee of Plantation Association (CCPA- tea plantation owners' association) has blamed the Centre for the sorry state of the tea industry in North Bengal and have demanded their immediate intervention for bailing out the industry.

"If the state government would not have supported the industry many gardens would have closed down. We have approached the Tea Board with the problems faced by

the owners a number of

times but our pleas have fallen to deaf ears. Let alone bonus even disbursing wages is becoming difficult," claimed Arijit Raha, Secretary General, Indian Tea Association.

After deliberations in Siliguri on Thursday the CCPA has requested interventions in

different avenues including minimum benchmark price of small tea growers to be linked to cost of production and minimum quality standards, auction reforms for fair price discovery and application of social welfare schemes in tea sectors.

"Allowing alternative use of land up to 20%of the Tea Grant Area to enable tea estates to opt for agro, industrial and commercial diversificationon a larger scale to augument income. Improvement of labour productivity and creation of a financial package for the tea industry providing working capital loans with interest subvention along with provision of a 2 year moratorium also feature in our demand list," stated Raha.