Tea gardens in the Dooars and Terai region of north Bengal have warned of a further hit on production, with the incessant monsoon rains over the past fortnight leaving gardens flooded, and road destroyed.
While many older gardens in this belt are lying closed and abandoned because of the recession over the past seven to eight years, the ones that had survived are now finding it difficult to make ends meet.
The Tea Association of India said that, not only will tea production in September be hit by the “excessive rainfall”, dispatches from gardens to auction centres have also been seriously affected with roads and bridges damaged. This will also affect the workforce, as the management is finding it difficult to bring in the rations.
The Dooars and Terai gardens account for an annual production of 222 million kg, or over a quarter of India’s total tea crop, with September considered an important month. The TAI has 48 member gardens in the belt.
The TAI has appealed to the state government to urgently repair the roads and bridges that have been damaged by the unusually heavy monsoon rains. It said the rains have severely damaged National Highway 31, railway tracks and many roads, and destroyed many bridges as well.
“The dislocation in the surface transportation has seriously affected the movement of tea dispatches from the gardens to the Auction Centres and various other destinations, which is having a crippling effect on the cash flow of the tea companies,” a TAI statement quoted its president Shashank Prashad as saying.
The TAI also pointed out that the annual bipartite bonus negotiations are scheduled to start on September 14, and urged all concerned to “act responsibly” and to keep in mind the “affordability” factor of the tea industry.
“Not only the survival of scores of workers and their families but also the economy of North Bengal depends on the viability of the Tea Industry in Dooars & Terai region which should not be compromised at any cost,” Prashad was quoted as saying.
The TAI said that the gardens, already reeling from the effects of the drought-like situation earlier this year and the pest attack that followed, are now having to tackle floods and lack of communications.
Prashad said almost all the tea gardens in the Dooars region were adversely affected by the torrential rain, with tea bushes and standing trees washed away together with top soil.