Need to create medium tea estate category: NETA

GUWAHATI: The need to create a category of medium tea gardens to ensure that growth takes place simultaneously in all sizes of estates has been raised by North East Tea Association (NETA).
"The Tea Board has two categories and considers any landholding above 10.12 hectares as large growers. But in our opinion this big spectrum of land holding needs to be put into at least three categories - small tea grower, medium tea estates and large tea estates," NETA Chairman Bidyanand Barkakoty told PTI.

Tea estates having an average annual yield of 1500 kg tea per hectare should be included in the medium category irrespective of the size of the tea estate, he added.

There are a large number of tea estates between 50 hectares and 300 hectares which are financially weak and need special attention and assistance from the Centre as they were the worst sufferers during recession in the industry.

Even after revival of the tea industry, these estates are taking more time to recover compared to large-sized gardens and separate schemes should be prepared by Tea Board for medium tea estates so that they can become viable units within a specific period of time, he said.

It is an established fact that during pre-independence era, Indians were given less fertile and hard to cultivate lands for tea plantation while the British companies kept the premium fertile lands for themselves.

Most of the present medium sector tea estates are the ones originally established by the Indians, while most of the present large tea estates with better infrastructure are the ones established by the British and as such, policymakers should not expect equal growth in large and medium sized gardens with the same schemes, Barkakoty added.