The Union government is considering withdrawal of the Coffee Act, 1942, as it is “no longer serving the purpose,” Minister for State (Independent Charge) of Commerce and Industry Nirmala Sitharaman said in the Lok Sabha on Monday.

She was replying to a supplementary question during Question Hour on the role of the Coffee Board, especially with regard to small growers, and why it was headless for the past two years.

“Over the years, the role of the Coffee Board has changed and many provisions of the existing Act have become redundant, especially after abolition of the Coffee Pooling System in 1996,” she said, adding that it had been proposed to repeal the Act, which was enacted more than 70 years back, and enact a new Coffee Bill, 2016.

The suggestions received on the Bill were “regarding control of the coffee industry, definition of coffee and coffee estate, cognisance of offences under the Act, etc, which are being examined,” she added.

Output decline In reply to a question from Prathap Simha from Coorg, the Minister said domestic coffee production was likely to fall this year.

“It has been estimated that there is a likelihood of decline in coffee production in 2016-17 by 8 per cent compared with 2015-16 due to lack of timely rains and high temperature during the crucial flowering stage,” Sitharaman said.

Asked whether the government would mandate international coffee chains in India to source domestic coffee, Sitharaman said the country was home to 2 per cent of the world’s coffee-growing area, but produced 4 per cent of global production and had a share of 5 per cent of world coffee exports, worth over ₹5,000 crore a year.

So, even though international coffee chains have set up shops in India, they buy coffee locally, she said.

The main buyers of Indian coffee are Italy, the Russian Federation, Germany, Belgium and Turkey, which account for over 50 per cent of coffee exports from India, she added.

Duncan tea gardens On another question by the Trinamool Congress’s Saugata Roy, who wanted to know how many closed tea gardens belonging to the Duncan group in West Bengal had been taken over by the Centre “as promised four months ago,” Sitharaman said the government had moved to take over some tea gardens, but there was litigation by the Duncan group.

The Minister said the process to identify new agencies to take over the managements of these tea gardens was on, in consultation with the State government.

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