India heading for another record tea output this year

October turned out to be a better month for the tea industry in the country with both North and South India posting impressive gains in production.

“The Tea Board has now released the production data for October as per which, India’s output increased to 177.32 million kg (mkg) from 151.15 mkg in October 2016. This increase of 26.17 mkg marked a gain of 17.31 per cent,” Rajesh Gupta, compiler of annual ‘Global Tea Digest’, told BusinessLine.

This happened because North Indian production increased by 23.47 mkg to reach 156.36 mkg and South Indian output rose by 2.70 mkg to reach 20.96 mkg.

In the recent years, India’s production has been posting new records year after year. Till August also, the country was hoping to post another record output this year, but in September, weather pulled down North Indian production heavily crashing the hope of another record output in 2017. October has brought in new hopes on this front.

“Our compilation shows that in the ten months, India’s production has increased to 1089.87 mkg from 1074.42 mkg. This increase of 15.45 mkg marks a marginal growth of 1.44 per cent”, Rajesh Gupta said.

Because of lower production in earlier months, North Indian overall output till October dropped to 894.23 mkg from 896.55 mkg. On the contrary, South Indian output increased to 195.64 mkg from 177.87 mkg.

Assam continued to top the country’s production table at 564.84 mkg, but it was less by 11.13 mkg over 2016.

In the South, Tamil Nadu produced 139.63 mkg (up 15.57 mkg) and Kerala 51.64 mkg (up 2.25 mkg).

If this trend continues in November and December, the country will produce an all-time high output of around 1,280 mkg, industry sources predict.