Ministry brews plan to promote tea, coffee

The commerce ministry is mulling over seeking geographical indicators (GIs) for Assam, Nilgiri and North Bengal tea. The ministry is also working out modalities to host India international tea and coffee festivals from 2007.

"We are planning big initiatives for the tea sector. We want to expand the cultivation of organic tea beyond Assam to south India. In addition, we are looking at building new brands like Assam, Nilgiri and North Bengal tea. We are developing logos for them and will also seek GIs for them," Jairam Ramesh, minister of state for commerce told Business Standard.

A geographical indicator is an intellectual property designation under the World Trade Organisation's trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights agreement.

The agreement defines GIs as "indications, which identify a good as originating in the territory of a member, or a region or locality in that territory, where a given quality, reputation or other characteristic of the good is essentially attributable to their geographic origin."

Ramesh said he was working on organising an India international tea festival at Guwahati in August next year, which would be similar to the Dubai Tea Festival. The festival would be held once in two years.

"We have three traditional markets "" Russia, United Kingdom and the UAE. We are working to expand our presence in Pakistan, Iran and Egypt. We will also be setting up two tea centres in Tehran and Cairo," he said.

The minister pointed out that a special purpose tea fund was being set up with an initial corpus of Rs 100 crore which would be designed on the lines of the India Brand Equity Fund with a full-time chief executive officer.

Under the scheme, subsidy would be provided to tea growers by public sector banks. In addition to the initiatives in the tea sector, Ramesh said the ministry was working to double the consumption of coffee domestically over the next 10 years.

"We are looking at developing organic coffee in Paderu, a tribal belt of Andhra Pradesh. We are also pursuing diversification of crops in the coffee growing areas where at least 10 per cent of the land area can be kept aside to grow citrus fruits, spices and medicinal plants," he said.