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TINSUKIA: The tea industry in Assam is plunging into deep crisis with small tea growers, that contribute about 51 per cent of total raw green leaves, at loggerheads with the owners of bought leaf factories (BLFs) over minimum supporting price. A consensus was reached in a meeting held in Dibrugarh on Tuesday in which the Tea Board agreed to reduce the fine quality leaves from 65 per cent to 40 per cent by weight for 10 days.
Chand Kumar Gohain, president of Assam Bought Leaf Tea Manufacturers' Association (ABLTMA), told The Sentinel that this arrangement for 10 days was purely temporary and all members had been asked to pay the minimum benchmark price for green tea leaves. He, however, denied that the owners of BLFs had deliberately reduced the cost of green leaves, as alleged, but contended that the market demand for made tea had declined drastically due to the COVID pandemic.
A section of BLF owners who produce quality tea fulfilling international standard alleged that many small tea growers provide leaves that are of inferior quality with very low moisture content, besides containing high proportion of matured leaves being plucked within a gap of 10 days or more. The small tea growers maintained that it was next to impossible to abide by the Tea Board norms to attain 65 per cent or above by weight as it required total hauling of tea bush. The BLFs contended that there was no issue of paying the minimum supporting price as mandated by the Government/ Tea Board, provided the small growers supply fine quality leaves (two leaves/one leaf bud). A BLF owner said that most often they were forced to accept the junk to avoid confrontation with small growers or their agents for which BLFs used to incur heavy losses as quantum of leaves had to be discarded.
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