Special Purpose Tea Fund for Kerala, TN launched

The Special Purpose Tea Fund (SPTF) scheme for replantation and rejuvenation of old tea plantations in Kerala and Tamil Nadu was launched here today by Union Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh.

In the next 15 years about Rs 4,700 crore would be spent under the fund of which about Rs 1,200 crore would be in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, the minister said while addressing a function here.

Stressing the need to aggressively push the scheme, he said this is the last hope for Indian tea. "If we miss the SPTF bus, Indian tea will lose its market to competitors like Sri Lanka, Kenya, Vietnam," he said.

Out of the 16,000 tea estates in the country eligible for replantation, applications from 479 tea gardens for the fund have been received in less than a year.

The fund had been launched last year in Assam and West Bengal. There had been some delay in launching it in south India, the minister said. Out of 479 applications, 255 are from Assam, 132 from West Bengal, 24 from Tamil Nadu, 18 from Kerala and three from Karnataka.

The minister said the government had decided to bring about important changes in the SPTF scheme to benefit the south Indian tea plantations with regard to area under replantation and labour.

Pointing that the SPTF had been slow in taking off in south India, the minister said the main reason was the fact that 40 per cent of the produce came from small growers in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, whose plantations were less than 25 acres. This segment was not part of SPTF as they were recent plantations.

The minister said the government had decided to bring in more flexibility in the fund by removing the upper limit of 2.5 per cent of area for replantation in a year.

South India was also facing severe labour shortage and the labour costs were higher.

The minister said negotiations were going on for taking over the closed tea gardens. By January 15, the government will publish the Expression of Interest (EOI) to activiate sect 16 (E) of the Tea Act. In West Bengal, already EOI for two tea gardens has been called. Ramesh also stressed the need to increase production of orthodox tea. India had lost its market share in Russia as the country preferred orthodox tea. India produces 80 million kg of orthodox tea, which accounts for 8 per cent of production, he said adding efforts were on to increase it to 120 million kg in the next 4-5 years.