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Kolkata, May 5, 2001 In a bid to give the much-needed boost to the Indian tea industry, the Tea Board of India has identified several areas which need special attention for inclusion in the Tenth Five Year Plan. The Tenth Five Year Plan will begin from 2002. The areas that have been identified for special attention include:
These were spelt out by the Tea Board chairman N K Das, at the 111th annual general meeting of the Calcutta Tea Traders Association at Kolkata last week. These proposals seem significant when seen in the background of the union commerce ministry halving the Tea Board’s budget. The cut was made in the second year of the ninth five year plan (1997-2002) to Rs 145 crore from a proposed outlay of Rs 304.40 crore. In the ninth plan the Tea Board had taken into account the planned expenditure on the plantation evelopment scheme, processing and packaging, tea development scheme for north-eastern states, small growers development scheme, market development and export promotion. However, the budget under each head been slashed in a major way, by the ministry. In a major effort to cope with dwindling exports, the Tea Board has short-listed three international consultants -- McKinsey & Co, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Accenture (formerly Andersen Consulting) to work out a mid-term export strategy for the Indian tea industry. This step has been taken due to import of large quantities of tea (10 million kgs) during the last financial year. Certain questions have been raised about the quality of tea that has entered India and apprehensions that cheap Sri Lankan tea might be finding its way into China through India. At the AGM, a re-look at the tea auctioning system was also discussed. The union commerce secretary Prabir Sengupta had a meeting with top Tea Board officials on April 30 to thrash out problems related to exports and the auction system, which needs to be overhauled. The meeting was also attended by merchant exporters. A sharp dip in tea auction prices in 2000 as well as the falling prices in the domestic market especially in south India is currently a worrisome factor for the industry at large. Besides, there is need to improve research and development facilities and help to the primary producers, due to the current slackness in demand, mentioned Das. It has been decided to set up a professional body to look into the present auction system and make recommendations on how to improve the same by introduction of new methods such as electronic billing. In January this year, the Tea Marketing Control Order had been amended and it is no longer mandatory for tea producers to sell 75 per cent of their production through the public auction system. D L Thapar, chairman, CTTA, brought up the subject of sales tax imposition on the commodity. As tea is an item of mass consumption, he felt that the state government should reduce the sales tax on tea, which had climbed from four per cent to eight per cent as part of the uniform sales tax regime drive which has adversely affected retail tea sales. |