The Hindu Business Line : Jairam Ramesh moots new dept for plantation

For independence
Problems plaguing the sector caught between the Ministries of Agriculture and Commerce.
Lack of political support barring from Kerala MPs.
Integrated department can take proper care of the industry.

New Delhi , June 14

The country's plantation sector employs five million people directly and is spread over in six important states; but it is not under the direct purview of either the Union Commerce or the Agriculture Ministry. Hence, a new Department of Plantation with an integrated policy and focused strategies is the need of the hour, the Minister of State for Commerce, Mr Jairam Ramesh, said on Wednesday.

Briefing newspersons after undertaking a review of the Commodity Boards over the past four months, he said organisation failure was the biggest bottleneck for this labour-intensive sector. "Let there be an integrated department taking care of this vital sector," he said. He added that as this sector generates only $1.5 billion out of the more than $100-billion export proceeds, it remained neglected by the Commerce Ministry.

He said the problems plaguing the plantation sector got embroiled between the Ministries of Agriculture and Commerce; and there was not much political support too, except from Kerala MPs.

Need for replantation

He said a tour of the plantation-crop growing states had convinced him of the need for replantation. While a Special Purpose Fund for tea reclamation was estimated at Rs 470 crore, rubber grown over 50,000 hectares would need replantation at a cost of Rs 600 crore. For pepper, this would entail Rs 400 crore and for coffee, Rs 600 crore over 90,000 hectares over five years. "All this money needs to be raised from the Centre, States and Nabard," he said.

Problems galore

According to him, another constraint was the low productivity of the Commodity Boards' research institutions. "I have mooted a proposal, which has been approved by the Department of Personnel, that the scientists in the commodity board research institutions should be treated at par with their peers in the laboratories of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research," Mr Ramesh said. He added that he would take up this issue with the Finance Secretary too.

Marketing remains the weakest link for several cash crops such as tea and coffee, even as the country contributes to 80 per cent of coffee exports and is the largest exporter of tea, he said. Hence it has been proposed to hold an international tea festival at Guwahati in March 2007, to be preceded by a coffee festival at Bangalore in February to foster brand awareness among consumers.

The threat of cheap imports and smuggling from Nepal was yet another problem the industry faced, Mr Ramesh said. Against the total production of 70,000 tonnes of pepper, as much as 15,000 tonnes were dumped duty-free from Sri Lanka, injuring domestic growers of pepper in Kerala, he said.

For tea, Pakistan, Egypt and Iran would receive special attention as potential markets for Assam tea, while extant market like the UK would also be targeted, he said. The Tea Board would take steps to ensure that the implementation of the price-sharing formula for small growers, introduced from April 2004, is markedly improved.

He said efforts should be made to extend the production of spice across the country, as the Spice Board is perceived to be Kerala-specific; the Board should strengthen its presence in areas like chillies in Andhra Pradesh and explore pepper and vanilla as intercropping options in the tea gardens of the North-East.