Bengal govt auctions tea gardens under West Bengal Tea Development Coporation

Three Darjeeling gardens have been bagged by Sanjay Bansal-controlled Ambootia group

Taking a leaf out of the Left Front’s book, the Trinamool Congress-led West Bengal government has divested its stakes in five tea gardens under the West Bengal Tea Development Corporation. The divestment of the state undertaking looks in sharp contrast to the ruling Trinamool Congress’ stance on central public sector units. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had raised red flag against the divestment of Coal India and Hindustan Copper in 2010 when it was first taken up by the previous United Progressive Alliance government.

Sanjay Bansal-controlled Ambootia group bagged three Darjeeling gardens, while the two in Dooars were won by the Ashok Garg family, having diverse business interests, including tea.

The Darjeeling gardens were sold for Rs 31 crore, while the Dooars ones were sold for Rs 7.30 crore. The five gardens were spread across about 2,000 hectares and together have about 3,500 workers. The Trinamool Congress government has, however, ensured that there is no retrenchment of workers.

The ownership of the gardens was handed over last month and both the groups are in the process of chalking out a plan to revive the loss-making gardens.

“We will convert the gardens to organic, which will take around three years. Organic gardens anyway need more workforce,” said Bansal, who makes one of the finest tea that are retailed at Harrods and Mariage Freres. The arbitrage in organic versus non-organic tea is about 25 per cent.

“It will require a lot of investment, but we have taken over sick gardens in the past. We hope to turnaround these gardens in the next four to five years,” Garg said. The Garg family has 13 gardens in north Bengal. On disinvestment of the state PSUs, former state industry minister, Partha Chatterjee, said, “Our stated position is to try and revive state PSUs. It is only the chronically sick units that will be divested.”

Last year, the state government also entered into an agreement with Purnendu Chatterjee of the TCG group, to sell its stake. The TCG group and the West Bengal government were the two principal promoters of HPL.

Partha Chatterjee has an explanation for the HPL deal, as well. “HPL was managed by the state government, but it’s not a PSU,” he said.

The Trinamool government’s stance on divestment is similar to that of the previous Left Front-led government. The Left Front government had tried to sell its shares in HPL, but it didn’t materialise. There were, however, other divestments during Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s tenure.

In 2005, the Buddhadeb government sold 90 per cent of its holding in heritage property Great Eastern Hotel to Lalit Suri Group after two aborted attempts in 1995 and 2001.

It was a complex deal. The hotel was under the tourism department, but to get the divestment going, it was brought under the industrial reconstruction department. The divestment happened under the restructuring programme supported by the UK’s Department for International Development. All workers were given voluntary retirement scheme.