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The Tea Board of India is looking to amend the Tea Act 1953, a move primarily triggered by recent closing down of some tea gardens, specially in West Bengal. The Tea Board is also set to meet the state government in the next fifteen days to come up with a solution to reopen the closed tea gardens, Tea Board of India Chairman, Siddharth, said.
“We are planning to meet the state government in another fortnight or so. One of the major problems with reopening closed gardens is change of lease and that is why we are also considering to look into amend the Tea Act,” he said here on Friday. However, no particular timeline for the same was given by the Tea Board chairman.
India has about eight closed tea gardens and five of them are in Bengal, mostly in the Dooars region, according to Siddharth. Recently, a couple of deaths by allegedly starvation had been reported in the tea gardens of Bengal. Siddharth, however, is of the view that the deaths did not occur owing to malnutrition or starving.
“We have reports from the local administration and that report clearly shows that the deaths are not by starving or malnutrition. We have a meeting with the state government to look into the problems and the Centre too is trying to see and come up with some solution to cure the problem,” he added. On the overall production front, he said, “We are confident of achieving 1200 million kgs this year despite a dip in the initial two-three months,” India had produced 1200 million kg of tea during last year.
