Guwahati: The North Eastern Tea Association (NETA) has made a formal appeal to Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi to persuade the Centre to declare tea as the national drink of India.
Calling on Gogoi on Wednesday, a NETA delegation urged the chief minister to take initiative to declare tea as the state drink of Assam.
A joint forum of NETA, Assam Tea Planter’ Association and Bharatiya Cha Parishad (BCP) is pursuing the issue of getting tea the status of national drink of the country, NETA chairman Bidyananda Barkakoty said here on Thursday.
Placing arguments in support of the demand, Barkakoty pointed out that the Indian tea industry employs 1.2 million permanent workers and another 2 million people are dependent on Indian tea industry, be it services or employment.
The total annual turnover of India tea industry is around Rs 10,000 crores, he said adding that India’s biggest strength is its ability to offer different varieties of teas such as Darjeeling, Assam Orthodox, Assam CTC, Dooars-Terai, Nilgiri Orthodox, Nilgiri CTC and Kangra, all of which have got different taste and flavour.
Geographical Indication (GI) has been given to Darjeeling and Assam orthodox teas. More than 5,80,000 hectares area is under tea cultivation in India and there are about 1,57,504 small tea gardens (size being below 10.12 hectares) in India.
Moreover, 83 % of households in India consume tea, as per the ORG India Tea Consumption Study 2008.
As per the same study, the penetration of tea in the household is in the range of 96% – 99% in both urban and rural areas of India, Barkakoty pointed, making a strong case for national drink status for tea. (UNI)
