The Hindu Business Line : Plantation policies' review mooted

While there is vast scope for enhanced cooperation between the Planters' Association of Tamil Nadu (PAT) and Sri Lankan plantation industry, the sector needs an in-depth (professional) vision, a reoriented social organisation and political pattern, according to the President and General Secretary of the Ceylon Workers Congress, Mr Arumugan Thondaman.

Mr Thondaman, who was in India recently stressed the need for a review of the policies as, according to him, "neither nationalisation nor privatisation proved to be the answer to the woes of the plantation industry."

He said Sri Lanka was the leading exporter of quality tea, exporting about 300 million kgs of tea worth over Rs 7,500 crore every year. As in South India, the small growers contributed a major chunk of the green leaf supply. "About 64 per cent of the tea production is made by the small holders while the corporate sector accounted for the remaining 36 per cent," he said.

The Sri Lankan tea industry, he pointed out was aiming to reach the top in quality production and earn $1 billion by 2011. "As the competition for commodity exports turn intense, it is expected to shift to value added products with strong brands and diversified products," he said.

Mr Thondaman said: "There is need to improve production techniques, upgrade machinery, adopt new agricultural methods and face the effects of globalisation."

He recalled that the Sri Lankan plantation economy underwent a slow process of social and economic change despite being taken over by private managements in 1994. He suggested the need for a right vision and knowledge-based programme for transformation of estate labour settlements into geographically identifiable local areas with complete local powers to run their services - social, educational, medical, infrastructural, agro industrial etc.