Experiments are on to replicate the performance in gardens, said Arvind Newar, president of Tea Association of India (TAI).

Talking to The Financial Express during his recent visit to the city, Newar said the Indian tea industry must improve its yield or bring new areas under its plantation to maintain its annual export level at 200 million kg, after meeting its domestic consumption. There was also a need to improve its quality, at least is select gardens, to regain its lost markets in England and other countries in the hard currency areas. As against a world average of 2,500 kg per hectare and 3,000 kg per hectare in Kenya, Newar pointed out, its yield in India has increased from 1,100 to 1,800 kg per hectare over the last one decade.

Its total production too has taken a quantum jump from 779 million kg in 1996 to 870 million kg in 1998.But, he said, it was not enough.

"We must set a target of producing 900 million kg tea by 2,000 and one billion kg by the end of the Ninth Five Year Plan. Another way is to bring new areas in Arunachal Pradesh and elsewhere in favourable agro-climatic zone," he said.

Addressing the 9th annual general meeting of the Western India Tea Dealers Association (WITDA) here, Newar said the domestic consumption is also likely to increase, but the recently levied excise duty on packaged tea may curtail the overall demand. It has been noticed particularly in western India that tea has penetrated in villages.

In coming year, tea would have to be promoted as cold beverage in tetra packs, as is already prevalent in advanced countries.

Referring to India's compulsion to import duty-free tea from Sri Lanka as per Saarc agreements, Newar said: "Every nation in the world protects its farmer but India is perhaps the only one which fails to do so."

Newar also tried to remove the doubts of tea dealers about Sri Lankantea which he said would not be much different from that grown in south India.

Inaugurating the AGM, Gujarat's youth services and sports minister Mahendra Trivedi said that experiments were on to plant tea in the hilly rain-fed areas in Dangs district in the state.

WITDA president Piyush O Desai expressed apprehensions that crops might be affected this season due to delayed rains in tea-growing areas of West Bengal and Assam in the month of March. He feared that tea prices might shoot up during mid-May to mid-June.