Dibrugarh, March 17: A more than century-old tea garden once owned by former chief minister Bimala Prasad Chaliha today got a new lease of life thanks to an initiative of a local entrepreneur.

A project for organic tea plantation was started on Gossainbarie tea estate near Demow in Upper Assam’s Sivasagar district today by Binod Saharia, a local businessman of Dibrugarh, with assistance from a Calcutta-based company M/s. Ambo Exports (P) Ltd.

“Over the past few years, there has been a lot of concern over the organic variety of tea. Various government agencies and the Tea Board of India, too, are encouraging organic plantation of tea through many schemes. This is why we thought to take up the project, which we know will be a tough task,” O.P. Agarwal from the Calcutta-based company said.

The total area of the garden is around 250 acres and the area under plantation will be roughly around 22 acres.

The tea estate is more than 140 years old and the ownership changed hands many times. Prominent among the owners were Chaliha who was said to have run the garden for quite a significant period of time.

The age of the garden has been estimated from the size of some huge bushes — 14 feet in diameter — that according to experts from the Jorhat-based Toklai Research Station, will be more than 140 years.

“We have planned the entire thing to be in the organic form, be it use of manure, pest control or production,” Saharia said.

The initiative has been welcomed by the workers of the garden who were running the garden by selling green leaves till the other day.

The garden changed hands three times since the early 1970s, but conventional tea plantation could not be revived.