By Animesh Deb
New Delhi [India], January 15 (ANI): Tea growers in Assam have kickstarted a year-long celebration of the plantation industry reaching a crucial milestone of 200 years. Tea estates around plantations, hitherto unexplored and unpicked, in the state’s upper reaches first came to be established way back in 1823.
Renowned globally for its richly coloured and aromatic tea, Assam’s tea industry, which is the country’s largest, provides livelihoods to millions with many others directly or indirectly dependent on the plantations. The state is famed for both Orthodox as well as the CTC (Crush, Tear, Curl) varieties of tea. In 1823, Robert Bruce discovered wild tea plants growing wild in the upper Brahmaputra Valley.
Subsequently, a tea garden was started by the government in 1833 in the erstwhile Lakhimpur district.
Cut to today, Assam now produces nearly 700 million kg of tea annually and accounts for around half of India’s overall tea production. The state also generates annual foreign exchange earnings estimated at an equivalent to Rs 3,000 crore.
India as a whole contributes 23 per cent to the global tea output and employs around 1.2 million workers in the tea plantation sector. The first event to celebrate 200 years of Assam tea took place in Jorhat last week. It was organised under the banner of North Eastern Tea Association (NETA).
On that occasion, a book ‘Two hundred years of Assam Tea 1823-2023: the genesis and development of Indian Tea’, written by tea researcher and writer Pradip Baruah, was released. The book chronicles the entire 200-year journey of Assam’s tea industry while also documenting notable events in its history.
“This book is a comprehensive account of the tea industry of Assam, which goes back two hundred years since the discovery of wild tea plants by Robert Bruce in 1823 by Robert Bruce with the help of Maniram Dutta Baruah. It also has the complete chronology of two hundred years of the tea industry from 1823 to 2023,” said Bidyananda Barkakoty, adviser to NETA.
Also, a Tea Academy, with renowned planter Manoj Jallan as its first director, will carry out long-term and short-term courses to create trained manpower for the tea industry.
Coming back to some key events in the state’s tea industry, the Toklai Research Station was established in 1911 near Jorhat in Upper Assam with a view to carrying on proper research on cultivation, manufacturing, and other key aspects linked to it. The research station has over the years played a crucial role in disseminating knowledge for the overall scaling up of tea output.
The next major event was the setting up of a tea auction centre in Guwahati. Proper marketing of tea has always been a problem in the region and the opening of the tea auction centre at Guwahati in 1970 ushered in a new era for the stakeholders. Previously, the tea auction centre at Calcutta was the only point for sale of Assam tea. The tea industry in Assam was earlier dominated by large-sized gardens operated by corporates.
Small tea growers – The emerging sector:
Tea plantation in Assam has come a full circle as thousands of small farmers have taken to growing the crop, primarily shifting from paddy. The tea plantation business has seen unemployed youths taking up tea cultivation as a business venture. Some even cultivate it in their backyards too, while many have started their tea stories through startups.
But everything is not ideal, and the industry continues to operate with several perennial issues.
For several years now, India’s tea industry has been struggling with issues such as rising production costs, relatively stagnant consumption, subdued prices and crop losses due to climate change. It also faces the challenge of finding a footing and holding its ground in a competitive global market. The tea business is cost-intensive, with 60-70 per cent of the total investment is fixed cost.
Assam recently raised daily wages for tea garden workers by Rs 27, over and above other benefits, to which they are entitled. Post the revision, tea workers in Assam’s Barak valley will get Rs 210 per day and for that of Brahmaputra valley Rs 232. Just ahead of the state elections in 2021, the BJP government in Assam had hiked the wage rate by Rs 38. The Tea community in Assam, which comprises a sizeable portion of the state’s population, play a critical role in dozens of Assembly constituencies.
Meanwhile, Assam is now working on a new policy for its 200-year-old tea industry.
In October 2022, the state’s industries and commerce minister Bimal Borah chaired a meeting in Guwahati on the proposed draft ‘Tea Policy’ with representatives of the tea industry bodies along with other relevant stakeholders, including auctioneers and buyers.
Among the proposals discussed, the state government would consider providing support to exporters for sending tea directly from Assam to overseas destinations. ANI had earlier reported that a financial incentive of Rs 5 per kg is under consideration with an aim to compensate additional expenditure on transportation and terminal handling charges of tea while being shipped out.
The draft policy has provisions for the exemption of SGST (State Goods and Service Tax) for the tea which are sold through the Guwahati Tea Auction Centre — one of the world’s major tea trading centres. “SGST reimbursement at 40 per cent shall be provided to the buyers,” the draft tea policy read.
For the replacement of old and worn-out machinery and installation of additional machinery, the state intends to provide 25 per cent of the actual cost of the plants and machinery, subject to a ceiling of Rs 50 lakh.
Further, setting up new blending, packaging units, value addition units and instant tea unit expansion of existing units or replacement/ addition of existing units, an incentive of 30 per cent of the actual cost subject to a ceiling of Rs 50 lakh were the other proposals that came up for discussions.
Setting up tea boutiques in major tourist places in Assam as well as major cities across India are among the other steps that the state has planned to improve the visibility of Assam Tea. To implement this, up to 50 per cent of capital investment with a ceiling limit of Rs 20 lakh is likely to be borne by the state government for setting up such boutiques inside the state. For outside of Assam, it may raise the ceiling limit to Rs 40 lakh.
The state government is also planning to organize annual tea festivals to commemorate International Tea Day, which is celebrated every year on May 21, for which a sum of Rs 50 lakh per year shall be parked for the purpose. (ANI)
