Guwahati, May 3: A parliamentary panel on commerce has pulled up the Tea Board of India for failing to improve the sincerely make sincere efforts in implementation of its schemes of the countryvolume of period because of adverse climatic conditions as one of the reasons behind decline in export volume of Indian Tea in 2014, compared to 2013.
"It has become nobody's property and people in remote locations are just spending their time without having much to do" a source said.
The department said it is taking various measures for cost-effective production on sustainable basis.
These include phase-wise uprooting and replanting of old and uneconomic tea areas, providing incentives for the use of some field mechanisation equipment, focus on irrigation to prevent/reduce crop loss and encouraging the tea factories to adopt energy efficient machinery items to reduce cost of production.
The committee has recommended that the department make its monitoring mechanism more robust to see that the Tea Board does not fail to discharge its mandate.
It has also asked the department to see that the board clears all the pending subsidies so that the stakeholders may be motivated to approach the Tea Board under various schemes.
Revamp mode
Tea Board measures for cost-effective production:
- Uproot and replant old and uneconomic tea areas in phases, as young tea fetches better price and reduces cost of production. 30% subsidy proposed
- Provide incentives to use field mechanisation equipment such as mechanical harvesting equipment, pruning machines and JCBs at 25% of actual unit cost
- Focus on irrigation to prevent/reduce crop loss because of irregularity of monsoon
- Encouragement to phase out worn-out machinery in tea factory by providing 25% subsidy
- Suitable incentives to self-help groups as revolving corpus fund for procurement of fertilisers/pesticides under small growers development scheme
- Introduction of plant protection code
