Fund crunch affecting tea research works at TRA's Tocklai institute

A reduction in government funding has severely affected research and development works at Tea Research Association’s (TRA) Assam-based Tocklai Tea Research Institute. Paucity of funds has compelled the TRA to put on hold few on-going research projects like the ones on new clone development, mechanisation of operations, reduction of use of pesticides and to find ways to tackle climate change.  

The TRA is partly funded by the central government and the tea industry. It undertakes research works on tea and helps the industry keep pace with the changing needs of the time by introducing the innovations and inventions made available to them by the TRA.  

However, for past few years the central government’s financial assistance has been on a downward slide and in past two years the matter has aggravated to such a scale that the research association is finding tough to even pay salaries to its staff. According to a top TRA official, the extent of fund cut has been 76% in the 12th plan. The central government funds are routed through the Tea Board of India. 

“Funding has become a major issue for us. There has been a massive cut in government funding since 2012. Say for example, as against the need for Rs 25 crore as plan allocation from the Centre, only Rs 6 crore has been released till now,” said Joydeep Phukan, secretary of TRA, while speaking to Business Standard.  

Phukan added that TRA currently has an outstanding of Rs 6-7 crore towards its employees in form of arrears. The TRA, he said, is even facing problem meeting Rs 1.5 crore annual budget of paying salary to its staff.  

“Kenya spends around Rs 15-20 crore annually on research on tea. Sri Lanka spends around Rs 17 crore.  Compared to this, the government spending of Rs 5-6 crore is very less, “Phukan said.  

Worried is the tea industry as it knows if research works are affected, it’s surely going to hit it hard in the long run, provided the competition in the international market is currently neck to neck. As a stop gap arrangement, the tea industry has scaled up its funding to the TRA.  

“The research projects are of importance and utmost necessity for us. There should not be any compromise. If research is held back, it will affect our productivity. The tea industry is scaling up its contribution to the TRA but the central government should be impressed upon the need for more fund allocation for TRA,” said a tea industry source. 

The TRA has already taken up the matter with the centre as well as with Assam government, the state which produced more than 50% of India’s tea. Kamakhya Prasad Tasa, Lok Sabha MP from Assam’s Jorhat constituency has been aggressively pursuing the matter with the Centre.  

Assam’s industry minister, Chandramohan Patowary, too has assured the TRA to take up the issue with the central government. “Tocklai will not be allowed to go down. It has to go up as we need it for tea research work. It will pursue the thing with the central government and get it done,” assured Patowary.  

Tocklai tea research station is the world’s oldest such centre and was established in the year 1911.