Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jan 10, 2008
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Online edition of India's National Newspaper Thursday, Jan 10, 2008 ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version |
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National
Kerala performance better in reopening closed tea gardens Lower tea imports by Iraq and Pakistan Kolkata: The Commerce Ministry has sent a letter to the Law Ministry for vetting its proposal to hand over closed tea gardens in Kerala and West Bengal to new owners. Disclosing this to presspersons here on Wednesday, Union Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh said the Ministry planned to issue on January 15 a public advertisement seeking expressions of interests (EoI) from prospective new owners. Five tea gardens each in Kerala and West Bengal figured in the proposal. Many of these gardens, lying closed since 2003, were being taken over by the Tea Board, invoking for the first time Section 16(E) of the Tea Act. There were 33 such gardens in West Bengal, Kerala and two in Assam. Some had already reopened in Kerala. Kerala had peformed better in reopening closed tea gardens compared to West Bengal, the Minister said. Since last year nine had already been reopened. “Kerala has moved extraordinarily well,” he said. Mr. Ramesh said in West Bengal bids had been received in response to the EOI invited for two closed tea gardens while talks were on with respect to two others. He said tea exports would go down following lower imports by Iraq and Pakistan. However it was important to shift from chasing volume to value. “If exports are above 180 million kg it should be a bonus.” On the tea garden replantation activity, he said the south had been slow in utilising funds earmarked for this purpose. Against the first year’s target of replantation of 11,000 hectares only around 6,600 hectares would be covered under the programme. He said while e-auction in tea would roll out as per plan, efforts were on to extend it to tobacco and chilli. He said introducing e-auction for cardamom had enhanced the average price from Rs. 300 a kg to Rs. 500-700 a kg.
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