All Assam Small Tea Growers’ Association urges Centre to provide subsidized fertilizers

Small tea growers stare at Rs 500-cr loss

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: The small tea growers in Assam apprehend a huge loss of approximately Rs 500 crore this season as leaves of the standing plants have become non-usable following lockdown. The tea plants would now require fresh pruning. To resume activities on a fresh mode, they have urged the Government of India to provide them fertilizers at subsidized rates.

These planters are facing this crisis despite the State government, on April 11, allowing resumption of activities in the tea gardens by following all the lockdown guidelines including social distancing. This was revealed by Karuna Mahanta who is general secretary of the ‘All Assam Small Tea Growers’ Association (AASTGA) and is also vice-president of the ‘Confederation of Indian Small Tea Growers’ Association’ (CISTA).

Talking to The Sentinel, Mahanta added, “We could not pick up the young green leaves after the first pruning as the nationwide lockdown commenced. While some of the leaves turned unusable during the period, even some plants have weathered now. We’ll have to go for pruning a second time this year. But the green leaves are expected to sprout only in the last part of May or the first part of June.

“This season, we lost the three crucial months from March to May. The reports collected from across the State show that the loss will be around Rs 500 crore,” Mahanta stated, adding, “Besides, we’re unaware of the prices that would be offered by the large tea factories when we approach them with the new batch of green leaves after the second pruning phase.

“The contribution of small tea growers to the rural economy will also slide this fiscal. Against this backdrop, we urge the Government of India to provide fertilizers to us on subsidized rates.”

The Ministry of Commerce looks after the issues related to the small tea growers of India.

Notably, most of the country’s small tea growers are from Assam; and most of them are local entrepreneurs.

The small tea growers across Assam trimmed (pruned) their tea plants between December 2019 and the first part of January 2020. Such plants started sprouting leaves in the late part of February. Though a section of the small tea growers had some of these green leaves picked from March, this crucial exercise slowed down owing to the coronavirus threat. And since the commencement of the nationwide 21-day lockdown from March 24 midnight, the process was stopped. As a result, the green leaves have already started aging; and the small tea garden workers are now left with no option but to pluck these aging leaves simply to throw them away.

Dwelling on the Tea sector as a whole, Mahanta pointed out, “We contribute almost 50% to the Tea sector in Assam. While approximately 1.5 lakh small tea growers are directly involved in the sector, about 15 lakh people including labourers, drivers, and many others are indirectly attached to the industry. This data is according to a report of the Assam Agriculture University (AAU).”

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