Tea production in India’s leading tea-producing state, Assam, has dipped in February and March due to the ongoing dry spell in the state, raising fears of an overall dip in production and a consequent price escalation later in the year.
Assam, which accounts for about 51 per cent of the total tea produced in the country, is facing a drought-like situation due to scanty rainfall since October 2008. Hence, tea production has fallen drastically by almost 75 per cent in February and March, said tea industry insiders.
Its production in March last year was around 20 million kg in the state. Official production figures for February and March this year are not yet out.
The dry spell has been so severe that the tea industry is now concentrating more on saving the bushes than production.
“In this rough phase, our aim is to see the bushes survive, let alone maintain production,” Dipanjol Deka, secretary of Tea Association of India, said.
Reports of bushes perishing due to the dry spell in the Barak Valley (south Assam) and North Bank (of river Brahmaputra) have already started flowing in, Deka said.
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He said production in the Barak Valley and North Bank has been almost nil and only the Brahmaputra Valley has reported some production during these two months.
Though the big tea gardens have irrigation facilities, but these are not sufficient to ensure the survival of tea bushes.
“Firstly, our tea clones are not drought-resistant. And the tea industry does not have irrigation facilities of the scale on stand-by to tide over drought as we never faced such a situation in recent times. Whatever irrigation facilities we have, we are using to help the bushes withstand the dry spell and start producing green leaves when rainfall starts,” said Deka.
Though the meteorological department has forecast normal rainfall since the first week of April, the tea industry feels it would take at least another 15-20 days for the bushes to become healthy and produce fresh green leaves.
According to figures provided by the Guwahati Tea Auction Centre (GTAC), fresh arrivals in March have been almost negligible compared to previous years. For example, in recent days only 5,000 kg of CTC tea has arrived for auction, whereas during normal conditions, this would have been the arrival figure in a day.
According to the industry, tea prices at auctions would go up further this year due to the shortfall in production. The average auction price at GTAC last year was Rs 94.99, which was an increase of Rs 23 compared to 2007.
The tea industry in Assam was upbeat last year as it could come out of the recession that had gripped the industry from 1999.
Besides the auction prices going up by Rs 23, the industry also registered decent increase in production as well as exports. Assam produced around 980 million kgs of tea compared to 944 million kgs produced in 2007. The export volumes of Assam tea too registered an increase of around 18 million kgs, as it touched 196 million kgs last year.