Staff Reporter
GUWAHATI: The lack of proper understanding between the Tea Board of India (TBI) and district-monitoring committees in the fixation of prices of green tea leaves gives enough leeway to bought leaf factories to buy green tea leaves at self-fixed prices in Assam. And this has badly affected the small tea growers who have no way out but to accept the throwaway prices that the bought leaf factories offer them.
The president of the All Assam Small Tea Growers’ Association (AASTGA), Rajen Bora, said, “Since the eve of the Durga Puja, the prices of green tea leaves have been on the fall in the state. Our production cost is around Rs 24 per kg. However, in many districts, the small tea growers have to sell green leaves at as low as Rs 12 per kg. Of course, at some places, small tea growers sell green leaves at Rs 30-32 per kg. One of the reasons behind this steep fall in price is that the bought leaf factories procure green tea leaves from Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh at lower prices. And this practice has its cascading effects on the small tea growers in Dibrugarh, Jorhat, Sivasagar, Tinsukia, Golaghat, etc.”
According to the association, the district-monitoring committees, with district commissioners as heads, and other stakeholders like the Tea Board of India, small tea growers and others, need to fix prices of green tea leaves well ahead of the onset of the plucking season. However, most of the district-monitoring committees do not convene any meeting for fixing prices of green leaves, and some of the bought leaf factories do not pay the prices fixed. And the Tea Board of India always stops short of playing its role to compel the bought factories to pay small tea growers the fixed prices.
Assam has around 1.25 lakh small tea growers who plant tea in around 1.17 lakh hectares of land. They contribute around 48 per cent of the tea produced in the state.
According to the association, neither the state government nor the Tea Board of India is serious enough to solve the problems of the small tea growers who make such a huge contribution to the production of tea in the state. A section of bought-leaf factories has been exploiting small tea growers. The unsustainable prices of green tea leaves have already dissuaded many educated youth from growing tea, a fact that does not augur well for the state. The association warns that if the authorities concerned do not solve their problems, they will resort to closing the district offices of the Tea Board of India.
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