The Centre has assured the state that it will make full efforts to bring Kishanganj district, located in the northeast corner of Bihar, on the tea map of the country as a non-traditional tea growing area.

The move will ensure tea planters get a better remuneration for their produce and are able to avail various sops meant for such areas.

"We are surely going to bring Kishanganj on the tea map of the country. We will write about this to the Tea Board of India chairman. Currently this area gets buried under two giant tea producing neighbours - Bengal and Assam," said Alok Chaturvedi, additional secretary in the Union ministry of commerce and industry.

Chaturvedi was in Patna to attend a meeting on "export promotion" organised by the state industries department. The department's principal secretary, S. Siddharth, was present with Chaturvedi.

Siddharth said the industries department will also make a written request to the Tea Board to consider Kishanganj on the tea map and recognise it as a non-traditional growing area.

"We will hold an exporters' workshop here which will be attended by central government officials. Training sessions for exporters will also be organised and issues pertaining to freight terminals and customs would be resolved within a month," Siddharth added.

Tea is being cultivated in Kishanganj for the last few decades and the area under it has been seeing a steady increase. Kishanganj tea planters' association representative Alok Kumar Singh said around 1 lakh acres are currently under tea plantation. The district, he said, produces around 1 crore kg of tea with the help of eight factories.

"Due to non-recognition on the tea map, tea-planters from the area face difficulty in selling their produce. Kishanganj tea should be branded just like tea produced in other parts of the country. This will provide recognition and better remuneration," Singh added.