The Hindu : Business : Tea quality upgradation proposal cleared

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Saturday, Mar 15, 2008
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Tea quality upgradation proposal cleared

Indrani Dutta

KOLKATA: The Union Cabinet has approved a Rs. 230 crore proposal to improve tea quality. The package, which will be implemented through the Tea Board of India, aims at upgrading quality through modernisation of processing factories and setting up of new factories for green tea production and certification of organic tea.

Nearly 50 per cent of the allocation is for providing a Rs. 100 crore subsidy for increasing orthodox tea production, in the absence of which India is rapidly losing its share in the international markets.

Its arch rival, Sri Lanka, produces only orthodox tea and last year India lost nearly eight million kg in the Russian market which has changed its preferences from CTC tea to orthodox tea in tune with the country’s rising affluence levels.

Union Minister of State for Commerce, Jairam Ramesh, told The Hindu that plans were afoot to increase India’s production of orthodox tea from 80 million kg annually to 120 million kg in five years. He said Rs. 87 crore would be spent on modernising existing tea processing factories which have not been modernised for the last 50 years or so. These tea processing units were mostly operated by small tea growers. Self-help Groups (SHGs) have been set up each in clusters of 100 tea growers, who would be given subsidy for running these processing units.

The Tea Board Chairman, Basudeb Banerjee, told The Hindu that the regulatory body had received sufficient applications in advance to kick of the scheme immediately.

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