Nirmala Sitharaman to take stock of commodity boards in boosting exports

NEW DELHI: The Narendra Modi government plans to take stock of boards set up to promote commodities such as coffee, tea and spices, upset with their performance, especially in boosting exports. “I am going to look at all commodity trade promotion boards sitting for years. Be it tea, coffee, spice, marine, tobacco, rubber... what value addition are they doing? Nothing,” said commerce & industry minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

“They have offices in London, Geneva, Sydney to promote tea. We are not able to sell one sachet more. What is the role of these people? I would not mind asking, do we need these boards? What are we getting out of them?” Sitharaman had told ETin an interview last week.

Exports of coffee, tea and spices combined declined 0.04 per cent to $2.7 billion in 2013-14, accounting for 0.8 per cent of outbound shipments.

"The minister is right," said a member of the Coffee Board who did not wish to be identified. "Though the board is able to support development domestically, it is not really able to promote coffee in the international market. It is working like any other governmental organisation without a vision."

An official of the Spices Board said the minister is "talking sense" but blamed the ministry for the current state of affairs. "They should have monitored the work, come out with a systematic agenda for these boards to deliver results. There are no balance sheets maintained.

It is simply about flowing of funds and spending them. Government should have done cost-benefit analysis right in the beginning and given a clear mandate on exports, R&D, development," the Spices Board official said. The government needs to convert the boards into private organizations, stop supporting them financially and let them run professionally, like the export promotion councils, said Ajay Sahai, CEO and director general of the Federation of Indian Export Organisations.

"We are losing out to Sri Lanka and Kenya. We need to look at blended tea in a big way. Everyone is looking for exotic flavour," he added.

There have been reports of tea estates closing, leading to starvation deaths in West Bengal and Assam, home to Darjeeling and Assam tea. India is the fourth-largest tea exporter, following Kenya, China and Sri Lanka, with 12-13% of the global market, a decline from an over 37 per cent share in 1960. "We have foreign brands opening stores in the country and running so successfully, it is time we promote Indian coffee and handhold Indian entrepreneurs to promote Indian coffee," said a member of the Coffee Board.