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Fast-track mechanism on the cards to reopen tea gardens in two States

Special Correspondent

An important tenet will be to change the ownership of closed gardens if the need arises

— Photo: Arunangsu Roy Chowdhury

Sorting it out: Union Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh at the Annual General Meeting of the association in Kolkata on Saturday.

KOLKATA: The Union Commerce Ministry plans to put in place a fast-track mechanism to reopen the closed tea gardens in West Bengal and Kerala, Union Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh has said.

Addressing the 124th annual general meeting of the apex body of the north Indian tea industry, Indian Tea Association, he said an important tenet of this mechanism would be to change the ownership of those gardens where the present owners were unwilling to step forward to reopen gardens within a month.

“We will do this irrespective of the political connection of the existing owners,” he said.

Efforts in progress

He said the 33 tea gardens closed for the last six years were giving a bad name to the entire industry. Although success had been achieved in reopening some of the 17 closed gardens in Kerala, West Bengal was proving to be a tough case where, despite sustained efforts since May 2007, only one garden was reopened.

Calling upon the industry to show responsibility and social awareness, the Minister said the fate of 17,000 families were linked with these closed gardens. Garden-owners would be given a month’s time before the Tea Board started invoking relevant sections of the Tea Board Act to hand over closed gardens to new owners.

Following his meeting at the State Secretariat on Friday with West Bengal Ministers Nirupam Sen (Industry) and Asim Dasgupta (Finance) and senior bureaucrats, it has been decided to set up a committee of four civil servants from West Bengal who will evaluate the new offers for takeover of 11 gardens, Mr. Ramesh said. The six-member committee would be headed by an official from the Commerce Ministry with the Tea Board Chairman also having a place in it.

Export challenges

On tea exports, he said India was facing severe challenges in some of its traditional markets such as Russia where tastes were shifting in tune with growing affluence. India was trying new markets but the rupee appreciation and logistic issues were hampering its progress in markets such as Pakistan.

On India-Bangladesh trade, the Minister, who was recently in Dhaka, said that in order to boost trade ties, FDI from Bangladesh could be allowed on a case-by-case basis.

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