The non-traditional areas, declared by the board are in Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Karbi, Assam, north Cachar hills of Assam, southern districts of Tripura, Orissa, Sikkim, Kumaon and Garhwal regions of Uttar Pradesh, Idukki district of Kerala, Kodagu district of Karnataka and Kodaikanal district of Tamil Nadu.

Official sources said the board would provide Rs 40,000 per hectare as subsidy to these non-traditional areas. The various other benefits were also being provided for tea cultivation in the traditional areas, the sources added. The Tea Board, under the union commerce ministry, would also provide a subsidy of Rs 28,000 per hectare to small tea growers in all these areas. The Tripura government had prepared an ambitious master planfor cultivation of this commodity by small tea growers, including tribals, on their lands or allotted lands, the sources added.

The preliminary surveys conducted by the Tea Board from time to time indicated that certain areas in Keonjhar, Kalahandi and Rayagada districts of Orissa were suitable for tea cultivation subject to availability of artificial irrigation in the dry months, the sources added.

Matters relating to tea in Orissa were now being looked after by the Agricultural Promotion and Investment Corporation of Orissa (Apicol).

The proposals, when received from Apicol would be accommodated under the board's new area development scheme, for which an outlay of Rs 2.50 crore had been provided in its ninth plan.

The Tea Board has recently sanctioned Rs 39.5 lakh for various Tripura government schemes for cultivation of tea by small growers, state's industry and commerce minister Pabitra Kar said. Kar said the Tripura government had prepared a master plan for tea cultivation by small growers infourteen blocks of the state. During the last financial year the state government had spent about Rs 60 lakh for providing various inputs to the neo-growers besides building suitable condition for cultivation of tea on small lands.

He said the tea board's funds would be utilised for training of small tea growers and officials, to organise workshops, for making of model tea gardens in the fourteen blocks and to develop the tea gardens managed by Tripura Tea Development Corporation.

Tea is the only organised industrial sector in Tripura where the number of tea gardens had gone upto 54 covering an area of 6,062 hectares with an average annual production of six million kg.