The Hindu : National : Tea board to set up processing units in Assam

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jun 26, 2006

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National

Tea board to set up processing units in Assam

Sushanta Talukdar

The cooperative units will help about 50,000 small tea growers to realise better price

JORHAT: Union Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh on Sunday said the Tea Board India would set up five cooperative tea processing factories for small growers in Assam. This would help about 50,000 of them to realise better price for their produce.

Mr. Ramesh told reporters here that the Board would also take a delegation of small tea growers to Kenya, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Vietnam to enable them to learn about efficient tea production.

The locations for the factories, each of which will be set up at a cost of Rs. 40 lakh, were being identified by the Board. The factories, with processing capacity ranging from 200 kg to 1,000 kg a day, would be entirely funded by the Board. The existing price sharing formula of 60:40 between buyers and producers did not benefit small growers, he said.

"The objective is to demonstrate to the small tea growers the efficacy of cooperative processing factories. In due course, self-help groups of small tea growers will manage these processing factories as the small growers in Kenya, Vietnam, Sri Lanka."

Describing small tea growing in Assam as a "new sociological phenomenon," Mr. Ramesh said it had transformed the rural economy. His Ministry would provide all kinds of support to strengthen the growers. The Board would set up a separate directorate for them. Small tea cultivation accounted for about 25 per cent of tea produced in the State.

Mr. Ramesh said he had written to Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, urging him to grant land ownership rights to small tea growers without which they would not be able to get bank finance.

He also announced the setting up of a research consortium between the Tea Research Association, the Regional Research Laboratory, Jorhat, and Assam Agricultural University to give tea research activities at the Tocklai Tea Research Centre here a new direction and bring the activities closer to the actual production process.

During his visit to Jorhat and Golaghat districts on Saturday and Sunday, the Minister visited the centre to take stock of the research activities and tea gardens.

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