From Our Correspondent
Agartala: The tea industry is all set to suffer badly in Tripura as the dry spell continues over the past few months.
With the unprecedented drought prevailing in the state, there is chance of drastic fall in the tea production causing a huge damage to the beleaguered tea industry.
“Tea production will be reduced an estimated 20 percent this season due to the unprecedented drought across the state”, said PK Sarkar, secretary of Tea Association of India (TAI), state unit here on Saturday.
The fall out of drought appears so serious that tea bushes are dying, suncorched and diseases like thrips, red-spider and other mites are prevalent in a large scale, he said.
Even if rain comes now, only after 21 days tea leaf will appear in bushes and more delayed flush will be there if there are delayed rains. So, the industry will loose first, second, third and fourth crop this season, he pointed out.
Water sources in gardens have got exhausted while artificial irrigation is also not possible and thus young tea plants and matured bushes are getting dying with every passing day, according to tea planters.
The industry in general suffers because of old age of tea bushes, high percentage of vacancy ration, lack of internal generation of fund and low productivity level with slippery tea market. “Keeping all these in mind, we suggest that a joint strategy is formed by the Tea Board, state government and Centre for revival of the tea industry”, said Sarkar.
Voicing concern over the crisis in the tea industry since 2006, Sarkar requested the government to come forward with a holistic approach to revive the fortune of the tea labourers.
The state has 57 tea gardens out of which 20 gardens are having tea factories. Rest are small, marginal and weak and surviving by selling green leaf to the garden having tea factories.