Assam: 50% crop damage in Barak tea estates feared

From a correspondent 

Silchar: The pre-monsoon heavy shower coupled with repeated hailstorms had badly impacted the tea industry here in the Barak Valley, as the Tea Association of India estimated a 50 percent crop loss. Sorodindu Bhattacharjee, the secretary of the Barak Valley chapter of the TAI, said the massive hailstorms on Tuesday night had severely damaged the tea plantations in the Hailakandi district. “Thousands of hectares of tea plantations have been damaged. The hailstorms caused leaf laceration and leaf fall. Shade trees were fallen, electric lines and poles were uprooted, and the and the roofs of dwelling houses, factories, and store buildings had been blown away,”  Bhattacharjee said. The badly damaged gardens in Hailakandi included Aenakhal, Roopacherra, Manipur, Koya, South Cachar Tea Estate, Burni Braes, and Kanchanpore. In Cachar district, gardens like Irongmara, Borojalenga, West Jalingha, Kailashpur, and Dwarbond were also badly impacted. 

 Bhattacharjee further said that electricity supply in the last month was erratic and the estate management was compelled to depend on power generation, causing an abnormal increase in the cost of production. On the other hand, regular blockades following landslides in Silchar-Shillong Road and disruption of railway service in the hill section had also impacted the industry badly as the estates failed to procure raw materials from outside the valley and were unable to dispatch produced tea.

A frustrated Bhattacharjee stressed that the natural calamity during the plucking season had put a question mark on the sustainability of the tea industry in the Barak Valley.

 Also Read: Assam: Pre-monsoon shower havoc in Barak; road blocked; train service disrupted (sentinelassam.com)

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