Rs 100 crore relief for tea industry

The Centre will shortly provide a Rs 100 crore subsidy package for the tea industry to improve the production of orthodox tea in the country.

This was announced by Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Jairam Ramesh. He was addressing the inaugural session of the India International Tea Festival (IITC)-2007.

Orthodox tea accounts for 8 per cent of the total tea production in the country.

The objective of the proposed package would be to lift the production of orthodox tea from the present 30 million kg to 80 million kg in the next five years.

The main challenge before the tea industry in the country is to improve productivity, said Ramesh. Countries such as Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Kenya are posing serious threat to India's exports.

The success rate of the Special Purpose Tea Fund, launched primarily to arrest the decline in productivity in June this year, has been 20 per cent till now, said Ramesh. "We hope we will be able to keep up the momentum," he said.

Ramesh, who was instrumental in holding IITC-2007, criticised the tea industry for its "lackadaisical and lethargic" attitude. For a country which is one of the largest producers of tea in the world, organising just five international conventions in the last 30 years shows the poor attitude of the industry, said Ramesh.

"This is not a professional way of marketing ourselves", he added.

"We have to show we mean business when it comes to marketing. Our traditional markets abroad are under threat, so we need to have a professional attitude," said Ramesh.

He has called upon the tea industry to consider the proposal of holding the international convention every alternate year.

"The brand we have created - the Great Indian Tea Party - should be a calendar event every year, similar to the Dubai tea festival, he asked".