Small tea growers of north Bengal sent a letter to chief minister Suvendu Adhikari on Monday, seeking his intervention to include their land holdings in the farmers’ registry portal of the state, like the neighbouring state of Assam.

The cultivators said such a step would help the growers gain the status of farmers and provide them with access to different welfare schemes meant for the agricultural sector.

“It is a longstanding demand of the small tea growers that they should be considered as farmers so that they can get the benefits of the slew of welfare schemes run by the state and the central governments for the farmers,” said Bijoygopal Chakraborty, president, Confederation of Indian Small Tea Growers Associations (Cista).

North Bengal has around 50,000 small tea growers who contribute around 70 per cent of the total tea produced in the state.

“We sent a letter to the chief minister today and requested him to consider our case. The decision made by the Assam government has also been referred to in the letter,” Chakraborty added.

Last Saturday, Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had said his government had decided to include the tea and plantation class land holdings in the farmers’ registry portal.

In a post on his official X (formerly Twitter) handle, he termed it a historic day for the small tea growers of Assam, the highest tea-producing state in India.

Mentioning that the decision is a “game changer,” Himanta wrote in his post that it would enable all the small tea growers to have a farmer’s identity card, ensure timely and requirement-based availability of fertilisers, and benefit from schemes in a single platform, allow credit with better terms for the small tea growers, and eliminate middlemen from exploiting our tea growers.

“It is a major leap for the Chai Samuday (tea fraternity), who can now enjoy all Govt benefits right from a single platform,” wrote the Assam chief minister.

Such a move by the neighbouring state has prompted the growers to write to Adhikari, seeking a similar status.

“It is a major development for the small tea sector of Assam as the growers can now apply for government schemes ranging from crop insurance to irrigation to annual assistance provided to farmers. We hope the Bengal government too will take a similar initiative for the interests of the growers and the tea industry as a whole,” said the Cista president.