July 13, 2018: A tea auction centre will be set up by the Tripura Tea Development Corporation Ltd (TTDC) in the State for growth of the Tea industry. Speaking to media, chairman of TTDC Santosh Saha said this and added, tea growers are facing problems for lack of auction centre in the State – presently, tea growers have to take produced tea to Kolkata and Guwahati for participating in auction process.
Saha said, the BJP-led Government has taken initiatives to ensure growth in the tea sector of the State. “Specific decisions pertaining to development of tea industry and welfare of tea workers were taken in a meeting of Board of Directors of TTDC on Thursday”, Saha said. Elaborating present situation, Saha said, almost half-a lakh people are dependent on tea industry for earning livelihood, however, it is irony that socio-economic condition of these people are in pitiable condition. “There are several welfare schemes for the tea workers and their families – TTDC will ensure that tea workers can avail the benefits of those scheme and improve their socio-economic conditions”, Saha asserted. Referring to State Govt’s plan, Saha said, the Chief Minister Biplab Deb has stressed on economic development and generation of employment. The chairman Santosh Saha said, “In Thursday’s Board of Directors meeting, a decision was taken to develop Eco-tourism based on tea gardens and discussions on creating eco-tourism centres at Tea gardens was also held with the Tourism Minister”.
Saha also informed the media that TTDC had decided to conduct a field survey to charted development plans for tea industry and an independent organization will conduct the survey. He also said, “The Finance Minister has assured help in conducting the survey”. Lamenting over unimpressive show by the State tea sector, Santosh Saha said, TTDC along with Tea-cell of the Industry department, TRA and Tea Board working for the development of the sector – however, there is no co-ordination among these organizations, which is affecting the prospect of growth. He assured, efforts will be made to establish co-ordination among these and launch concerted efforts for growth of tea sector.
Saha also presented statistical overview of Tripura Tea Sector. He said, there are total 58 tea gardens in Tripura out of which only three gardens are being managed by the TTDC. While 42 tea gardens are under private ownership, 13 tea gardens are being run on Cooperative model. Total 13 thousand 380 workers are working in these gardens – moreover, three thousand 273 small tea producers are also part of the tea industry.
On the production side, state produces 87 lakh 94 thousand 546 kg tea while capacity of installed tea processing machines stands at one crore 31 lakh 50 thousand. He also mentioned that production of green leaves tea is three crore 58 lakh 75 thousand 893 kg.
