Jalpaiguri, Jan. 29: If you want subsidy, register with Tea Board: that was the message conveyed to small-scale tea growers of Jalpaiguri at the registration awareness camp held at Tamlahat near Raiganj on Tuesday.

The venue for the first in a series of camps was the office of the Uttarbanga Khudra Cha Chasi Welfare Samity, where assistant director of Tea Board Amal Roy Choudhury and other officials explained the benefits growers would be entitled to on registration.

The seminar has gone down well with the participants. Samity spokesman Bijoy Gopal Chakrobarty said, “We welcome the step taken by Tea Board. Our members will definitely benefit if the Board organises such seminars and camps.”

At the awareness camp, officials of Tea Board specifically mentioned that in order to earn a subsidy of Rs 2,600 per hectare, the small growers should possess a no-objection certificate issued by the state land reforms department.

The small growers were also asked to get their gardens’ soil tested by agencies authorised by the Tea Board to ensure that the land is suitable for tea plantation. Also, growers will have to get their land surveyed by authorised surveyors of Tea Board.

Samity members are thus ready to deal with the matter. “We will start the task soon. As the Tea Board has asked us to get registered, we must not lose the chance,” Chakrobarty said.

The district land reforms department is also trying to help the small tea growers so that they can avail subsidies. District land and land reforms officer of Jalpaiguri Rajiv Kumar said, “We will collect cess on the land for the current financial year. Though many growers have obtained the mutation and conversion certificate and also the NOC from us, many others are yet to do so. We are planning to organise camps in the tea belt where we can collect the cess.”