The Hindu Business Line : Rail link across border

STANDING under a tree with a small pile of pineapples, a middle-aged Lushai woman extended her hand and told me with a wide open smile, "I want to shake hands with you."

I firmly shook hands when she offered me three pineapples each weighing over two kg. That gift was not refused. Tribal women are pretty and bright as the early morning and evening skylight of Tripura.

Tribal men are a bit stiff and hard as the noon skylight. Before 1960, tribals formed 70 per cent of the population of Tripura with 30 per cent being Bengalis. Since the 70s, the position has reversed (total population being over 31,99,203 as per 2001 census) with Bangladeshis moving in from Comilla in Bangladesh to West Tripura, from Noakhali and Chittagong into south Tripura and from Sylhet into North Tripura.

A tribal does not part with his income status as in some areas such as Jumpui Hills the extremists levy a toll based on annual income. But in Biaka Vela village, spread over 150 hectares of hill-land belonging entirely to the Lushai community, men laugh and talk possibly because the society is matrilineal.

Top officials of the Tripura Government come from here. Every mud house with a tin roof has a front and back yard; the plot is neatly marked out from the next by a 3 ft. well done bamboo fence. There is no dirt anywhere. As we walked around, one saw young girls coming up the valley with Kew pineapples loaded in baskets strung to their backs. The Queen variety is not grown here.

Remi Darlong with a girl child tied to her back walked into a tea shop in a bamboo hut and told us she had come for a break before going back to her pineapple farm. The production cost comes to Rs 60,000 per year per 8 hectares and another Rs 40,000 goes for weeding.

Pineapples grow under tall teak trees on organic fertilisers to fetch an annual income per family of Rs 3.5 lakh per 8 hectares (42,000 pineapples per hectare).

During the season, a pineapple weighing over two kg can fetch about Rs 5 per fruit. About 200 ft. away is the closed Fruit Juice Concentration Plant of the North Eastern Regional Agricultural Marketing Corporation (Neramac). The plant, set up by the Central Government, lay shut as we entered the place with a couple of workers telling us that it runs during the peak season from June 15 to August 15.

The Lushai villagers are cut up over the way the plant is working, rather not working, with the chairman and managing director located in Guwahati, Assam.

"It is of no help to us. Marketing is a major problem for us," remarked a village elder. Driving through Tripura, one can see plain and forest lands being intensely cultivated with fruits and vegetables in plenty; there is nothing of the naked deprivation seen in Maharashtra. Most of the crop goes to Assam or is smuggled into Bangladesh.

Cruising on the National Highway 44, linking Agartala to Guwahati, is a time-consuming ordeal as the traffic moves with armed convoys at specific time slots, if at all. On the highway one can see hundreds of lorries lined up on either side awaiting armed escort.

The farmers are worried over the border fencing as it could stop smuggling and leave them with surplus crop, lowering returns.

"You like it or not, smuggling into Bangladesh helps Tripura's farmers. Farm produce has to do a truck journey of around 1,600 km via Guwahati to reach Kolkata and by then the supplies will perish or be out priced by the cost of transportation, " admitted a Government official.

He put the rate of return on rice at 15 per cent, vegetables at 30 per cent and fruits at 50 per cent. Our trip started with a visit to the farm of 60-year old Ali Ashrab in an upland area in the Matabari agricultural sub-division of south Tripura. His wife, 50-year old Manohar Begum, was intently reading the morning newspaper, which again is not a rare sight in Tripura with 70 per cent literacy (drop out numbers were not available).

Well-dressed yelling children can be seen anywhere trudging to schools in the mornings.

The man has about 3 hectares of land, grows lichi, bananas, pineapples, coconuts and arecanuts under the Technology Mission of the Centre, is serviced by a 1.2 hectare community tank and is well off. He has five sons and one girl and there is the possibility of the land being split.

The average size of holding in Tripura at 0.97 hectare is the lowest in North East; 90 per cent of farmers are marginal; the geographical area is 10.49 lakh hectares; gross cropped area is 4.92 lakh hectares; net cropped area is 2.80 lakh hectares; 60 per cent area declared as forest.

In this milieu, if the initiatives to raise farm output in Tripura have to click, India and Bangladesh will have to open rail links and that's not difficult.

At Agartala, Belonia and Kasba in West Tripura one could spot railway stations where Bangladesh trains halt and they are at best some 5 km from the Indian borders.

If India and Bangladesh can drop their massive egos, the rail lines can be coupled to provide the best marketing opportunities for the farmers of Tripura and Bangladesh. A rail line can be laid linking Agartala to Kolkata through Bangladesh to help business.

Otherwise, in a few years, Tripura's farm economy could go down with excess production.

Bets are high on the single, metre-gauge track being laid to link up Silchar in Assam with Agartala, which over time could be made broad-gauge. The track currently ends at empty Manu station with one train each in the morning and evening.

In the afternoon, there was not a soul at the station with the room of the station master locked. The approach is hilly and only autos can make it to the station. Possibly one can never sight a more bereft rail halt.

But for Dr Gomatham Srinivasa Govindaraja Ayyangar, an IAS officer of the Tripura cadre coming from Guntur district in Andhra Pradesh, there is sprightly hope.

The less than 50 year old does not look like a worn out government file lying on his desk; he wears small gold ear-rings and displays a vertical, red namam splitting his forehead in two; he smiles and is prepared to own up problems.

His fingers softly cut the air while talking of contract farming, quality and the rest while admitting that "marketing is the most critical for Tripura's agrarian economy."

With most of the farming being organic, the Tripura Government is working on setting up a certifying agency for horticulture and talks are on with Mr Samuel D. Mohan of Ararat Worldwide, Bangalore, the sole body certified by the Centre for organic certification.

Talks are being held with Nafed to sell farm produce while contract farming for growing seeds is being discussed with Nafed and National Seeds Corporation.

From here the private sector may not be far off but then the long trucking distance does not help. When asked about the private sector, the gentleman has a laugh.

The Tripura Government is run by Leftists.

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