The Hindu Business Line : Tea meet to discuss ways to lower output costs

Kolkata, Nov. 19 A major challenge facing the country’s tea industry today is that of making production more competitive and the issue is likely to come up for discussion at the forthcoming India International Tea Convention to be held in Guwahati from November 22 to 24, according to Mr Aditya Khaitan, Chairman of the Consultative Committee of Plantation Associations (CCPA), the apex body of all tea producers.

“We’ll also require buyers to bring in level-playing fields in matter of prices,” Mr Khaitan told Business Line. “A large number of buyers including those from Pakistan, the UK, Egypt and Germany are to attend the convention”.

Changes in old laws

Mr Khaitan said the Governments of the tea producing States should be more pro-active in matter of amendments to some of the old and archaic state-level laws governing social commitments of the tea producers.

“This is important because 80 per cent of our costs are fixed costs covering, labour, power and fuel,” he said.

“Some of these laws were framed when there was no infrastructure but the situation has vastly changed since then.”

The other issues which, according to Mr Khaitan, deserved attention were the integration of the small growers with mainstream tea production and the use of pesticides in tea crops.

According to one estimate, the smaller growers now accounted for a sizeable chunk of the country’s total production, more than 20 per cent, and they therefore must conform to the prescribed quality and other standards set for the organised tea producers.

“In most tea producing countries, unlike India, there are no separate standards for big and small growers,” he said.

The use of pesticides was also a matter of concern.

While the gardens producing for exports were by compulsion required to maintain certain standards in regard to use of pesticides, lest they lost the international markets, the same was not true about those gardens producing for the domestic consumers. “This is untenable,” he said. “The domestic consumers, like the tea drinkers abroad, have the equal rights to have pesticides-free teas”.

The domestic tea prices this year, according to the CCPA Chairman, are set for an upward trend, particularly in the second half. This would happen because of the demand-supply gap. “We need an additional 30 million kg of tea every year to keep up with our demand growth but till September there has been a shortfall in production vis-À-vis the same period last year,” Mr Khaitan added. “Last year, the production was around 955 million kg; this year it may be less than that.”