Separate Cell under the Tea Board to be set up to look after Interests of Small Tea-growers

The Union Government approved of the setting up of a separate cell under the Tea Board to look after the interests of small tea-growers. A notification was issued by The Commerce Ministry in this regard. The number of small tea growers in India is estimated at 157500, accounting for a production of about 257 million kg of made tea, or roughly about 26 per cent of the country's total production.

The Commerce Ministry sanctioned 95 posts for the cell and the recruitment would start in due course. The analysts felt that the small tea growers, mostly unorganised are different from those in organised tea sector and should receive due attention. The proposed cell should be able to devise a mechanism to ensure fair price to growers as well as bought leaf factories.

However it was felt that mere constitution of a cell would not be enough as certain issues critical for the small tea growers must be addressed properly by the authorities concerned.

Bijoy Gopal Chakraborty, President, Confederation Indian Small Tea Growers Associations (CISTA) demanded enhancement of the amount of one time capital grant from the present Rs five lakh to Rs seven lakh to each primary producer society of small growers in the 12th Plan. Each society having a minimum membership of 40 growers against the present stipulation of 50 and minimum command area of not less than 20 hectares, should be eligible for the grant. CISTA demanded that the revolving corpus fund should be provided to each society according to their total land holding at the rate of Rs 10,000 per hectare.

Several other demands such as consolidation of uneconomic holdings, setting up of processing unit by primary producer society, assistance for promotion of organic tea cultivation, formation of a model self-help group and scheme for welfare of workers were placed before the consultation workshop on plantations for preparing approach paper for the 12th plan.