A revival package has been drawn up to help nearly 3,000 tea growers in the Thothanadu belt, suffering from huge loss due to last Saturday's unprecedented hailstorm.

This follows the survey undertaken jointly by Dr S. Ramu (Tea Board member), Mr K.G. Udaya Bhanu (Assistant Director, UPASI Tea Research Foundation) and Mr G. Ramamoorthy (Head, UPASI Tea Quality Upgradation Programme).

“We have done field survey, interacted with farmers and horticulture officials. Around 1,000 hectares in different villages from Kattabettu have suffered intensive damage. The loss has occurred when the bushes are heading for peak cropping season. Growers would lose nearly 75 lakh kg of green leaf worth Rs 7.5 crore in the next three months. This will reduce the supply of raw material to the factories resulting in a production loss of about 20 lakh kg of manufactured black tea. At prevailing prices, this would mean a loss of Rs 14 crore to factories in the next three months,” Dr Ramu told Business Line .

Based on this, Tea Board members from the Nilgiris – Dr Ramu, Mr Koshy Baby – as also Mr P. Viswanathan, representing Parliament on the Board, have drawn up a revival package.

“The package we are submitting to the Board is three-pronged — grower survival, plant protection and crop sustenance. There would be no crop for the next three months. This would mean a loss of Rs 75,000 an hectare during this period. So, for grower survival, our package recommends lump-sum ‘survival subsidy' of Rs 15,000/hectare. Long-term quality crop sustenance can happen only with pruning for which we have sought pruning subsidy of Rs 12,500/hectare,” Dr Ramu said.

“For plant protection, we have advised farmers to prune affected bushes or do skipping with application of Zinc and fungicides,” Mr Ramamoorthy noted.

“We have collected hailstone samples to study the presence of any preservatives or chemicals including ‘acid rain' and their impact on tea plants' health,” Mr Udaya Bhanu observed.

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