Faced with a bleak price outlook amidst changing climatic patterns impacting the production, the beleaguered plantation community in South India has urged the Centre to come to their rescue immediately.

The United Planters’ Association of South India (Upasi), the apex planters body, said in a statement that the plantations were going through a quite stressful period as they face the agrarian distress due to climate change and not able to fetch remunerative price for the plantation commodities.

“Majority of the estates are making huge losses and struggling to carry out the day-to-day operations and make timely wage payments to the workers. Prospects of improvement in prices in the near future is bleak and they look forward for the immediate intervention of the Government,” Upasi President, AL RM Nagappan said in a statement. According to the planters’ body, substantial amounts are outstanding to the growers towards approved schemes of the Commodity Boards. For example, in the tea sector alone, ₹55 crore was due, as of now, for South India.

Upasi said the meagre additional allocation made to the Commodity Boards in the current Budget will not be sufficient to clear the dues. Considering the seriousness of the situation in plantations, Nagappan said that Upasi has requested the Centre to sanction additional allocations to the Commodity Boards to enable them to disburse the overdue amounts to the South Indian plantations immediately.

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