The Council of Management of Tea Research Association has renamed the century-old Tocklai Experimental Station as Tocklai Tea Research Institute, a top official of the institute said today.
The Association in a resolution has decided that from the ongoing month itself all the letter heads, banners, signboards of Tocklai will be read as Tocklai Tea Research Institute, Institute Director Dr Muraleedharan said.
Tocklai, one of the oldest and largest tea research institutes of the world, carries out and promotes research on all aspects of tea cultivation and processing with the principal objective of improving overall productivity and quality of tea, he said.
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"This is done through information generated from its Research and Development (R&D) activities and is effectively communicated to tea growers through a network of advisory service with seven advisory centres located all over northeast India," he said.
It has been the pioneer in many field of development of new varieties of tea clones, agro technology, tea-processing, biotechnology, biochemistry and machinery development among others, Muraleedharan added.
Tocklai had started tea research in 1898 when the Indian Tea Association (ITA) appointed H H Mann as chief scientific officer at the Calcutta Museum.
The Tocklai Experimental Station was established in 1911 as scientific Department of the Indian Tea Association on the banks Tocklai river.