India's tea production is expected to jump by close to 40 percent once the aging bushes that are more than 50 years old are replanted or rejuvenated.
GUWAHATI: India on Monday launched a whopping Rs.48 billion ($1.1 billion) package to help its beleaguered industry replant aging tea bushes to boost quality and production.
"The Special Purpose Tea Fund is a 15-year project covering about 200,000 hectares in 1,000 of India's nearly 1,600 plantations," union Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh said while kickstarting the mega rejuvenation plan in Assam's main city of Guwahati.
India's tea production is expected to jump by close to 40 percent once the aging bushes that are more than 50 years old are replanted or rejuvenated. India produced a record 955 million kg of tea last year, 27 million kg more than in 2005.
"Right now a hectare of land yields about 1.7 tonnes of tea and after replanting and rejuvenation production is expected to be around 2.2 to 2.3 tonnes per hectare," the minister said.
The first phase of the mega tea package includes 82 gardens in the northeastern state of Assam covering an area of about 2,000 hectares.
"A total of Rs.480 million is involved in this phase of the loan agreement signed Monday of which the government and the tea growers share is 25 percent and the remaining 50 percent is soft bank loans," Ramesh said.
Assam is considered the heart of India's tea industry with the state accounting for about 55 percent of the country's total annual tea production.
"More than 50 percent of the total project money would be utilised for replanting and rejuvenating almost all the 800 tea plantations in Assam and 25 percent each for West Bengal and South Indian gardens," Ramesh said.
"We have decided to use the help of remote sensing satellites to monitor the progress of the project," Basudeb Banerjee, chairperson of the Indian Tea Board, told.
India's $1.5 billion tea industry is facing a crisis with prices dropping in the weekly auctions since 1998 and exports plummeting as well. The industry has, however, shown signs of resurgence - a kilogram of good quality Assam tea was sold at Rs.60, about Rs.2.5 higher then last year. Exports have gone up by about eight million kg to 200 million kg last year compared to 2005.
Planters in the region are hopeful the package would be able to revive the Indian tea industry. "This is a long term plan and we are quite optimistic about productivity and improving quality once many of the tea bushes are replanted or rejuvenated," Bolin Bordoloi, head of the Assam operations of the Tata Tea group, said.
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