| The price subsidy scheme for the tea sector was announced during the interim budget 2004-05 and ratified by Parliment recently. |
| Estimated at about Rs 23 crore for South India, the scheme is expected to benefit about 75,000 small growers in southern India. |
| Senior Tea Board officials said the central government will release the funds early next month, after which disbursements will begin. |
| For now, the Tea Board will be processing the claims received from bought leaf factories. |
| Already 150 of the 200 factories in southern India have filed claims and the rest are expected to follow suit before the last date, 30 September. |
| The scheme provides for payment of a maximum subsidy of Rs 8 per kg for made tea, which would be equivalent to Rs 2 per kg for green leaf. It would spans four months starting February 2004. |
| According to the Tea Board, small growers who own 10.12 hectares or 25 acres will qualify for the price subsidy scheme. |
| Officials said the payment would be made to factories which in turn will remit it to small growers. The challenge lay in ensuring that the benefit ultimately reached small growers. |
| To ensure this, the Tea Board is expected to seek the assistance of district-level administrative machinery. |
| The Tea Board will use the experience gained from this exercise to evolve a comprehensive database of small growers. |
| "The board will register the name and profile of the grower and garden. It will proceed with allotment of registration numbers to growers, which will eventually be circulated to the factories for reference," said the sources. |
| The central government has launched several initiatives to assist the ailing tea plantation sector like the technology upgradation scheme and price sharing arrangement between factories and growers. Growers are currently awaiting a package that will assist schemes for replanting and rejuvenation of ageing tea bushes. |
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