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Fifteen-tea-garden strong Andrew Yule Ltd is likely to bid for four loss-making Darjeeling gardens, owned by West Bengal Tea Development Corporation, on offer for 30-year renewable lease.
The public sector company has already expressed its interest and the Board last week has empowered the CMD Kallol Datta for the move. Datta said, “We are contemplating to bid for the gardens”.
Andrew Yule, which has just one tea garden in Darjeeling, is to opt for bid in the auction of the Pandem, Rangaroon, Rungmook and Cedar tea estates, which constitute one of the two packets up for sale."
According to sources, all the four put together will have a total lease area of around 1,232 hectares. However, the tea cultivation area of the estates is placed around 638 hectares and the balance is used for other garden infrastructure including workers’ colonies. About 2,408 plantation workers were on the rolls of these estates, who have to be absorbed by the successful bidders.
The technical bids are to be placed early next month, which would be followed by financial bids. A few more city based private tea planters have also expressed their interest in the Darjeeling gardens, sources said.
The West Bengal Government-owned gardens are poorly maintained, and needed long-term investment to become a profitable proposition. The gardens are highly low yielding; during the current (2014) season they have produced 1.34 lakh kg of tea.
Assam Government had also offered to sell its 15 sick gardens to AYL. However, the company has not taken any decision on such direct sale offer.
Online marketing
Datta said AYL formally launched its online packet tea-marketing portal on Wednesday. This is part of an aggressive domestic sale plan. Since last year, AYL has also gone into direct export sale to a number of customers. This year, the company expects to produce 12 million kg of tea, slightly higher than last year. It expects to record a tea turnover of Rs 204 crore this fiscal against Rs 183 crore last year.
It has planned to setup a series of its branded tea lounges and kiosks at airports and in cities on its own or through franchises.
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