70 Tea Factories Wind Up In South

The closure of about 70 tea processing factories in the recent past in south India is threatening the livelihood of thousands of workers in the region.

The activities in most of the gardens have almost come to a halt and the small time tea growers are not finding any takers for their produce, who can bail them out of their present condition.

The tea industry representatives had recently sent an SOS to the Centre urging it to amend the trade policies to provide a much needed boost to the industry. They urged the government to abolish the excise duty of Rs 2 per kg on bulk tea, to stop tea imports fully and to coax Russian government to buy south Indian tea with suitable debt repayment scheme.

 

Senior officials of the tea industry will address these issues at the forthcoming annual general meeting of the Indian Tea Association (ITA), which will be attended by Omar Abdullah, union minister of state for commerce and industry.

`'Even a small offtake of south Indian tea by Russia will improve the sentiment," a senior tea industry official said. The south Indian tea is suffering for the last two years because of declining prices and increased cost of production. The south average was Rs 68.80 per kg in 1998, Rs 57.09 per kg in 1999 and Rs 49.85 per kg in 2000.

`'If the present condition continues for the next two months, then most of the south Indian planters will not be in a position to pay the wages, and the unemployment figure will soar,'' sources said. The south Indian tea industry accounts for about 20 per cent of the total area under cultivation in India and over 23 per cent of the production. The segment employs 2.5 lakh workers.