Ease of Doing Business for MSMEs: Tea Board of India, the government agency for the promotion of tea in domestic and international markets, has sought assistance worth Rs 1,000 crore for the industry for the next five years starting 2022-23, as per a report by the Press Trust of India (PTI). 

The budget submitted to the commerce ministry is focused on hand holding the small tea growers (STGs) who contribute 52 per cent to the total tea production in the country, said Saurav Pahari, Chairman of Tea Board. 

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“We have sought assistance of Rs 1,000 crore in the budget submitted to the ministry for a period of five years starting 2022-23,” informed Pahari after the Annual General Meeting of the Indian Tea Association (ITA) on Thursday.

Further, the Board had also sought subsidy for orthodox tea production which has a good export market, said Pahari. 

“It is good to note that the tea industry on the whole now acknowledges the contribution of the STGs. It should be a collaborative effort between the big tea planters and the STGs for the development of the industry,” Pahari mentioned. 

He said that the tea exports had contracted but is picking up now. “However, domestic production has not picked up as expected. India needs to build the brand image of tea,” Pahari added.

To optimize the use of labour in the industry, he said that technology needs to be adopted while keeping the production costs within control to maintain profitability. 

V Anantha Nageswaran, Chief Economic Adviser (CEA) via video message said that the share of India in global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has increased to 3.4 per cent from 2.6 per cent.

Currently, the world is going through several crises like high inflation, high interest rates and an increase in commodity prices, said Nageswaran adding that India had responded to the crisis by streamlined fiscal and monetary policies and gave a lot of stimulus in the last three years. 

Nageswaran also said that the MSME sector had been supported through the credit guarantee scheme. The government had recapitalised the public sector banks which had seen a decline in the non performing assets (NPAs), he added. 

Further, Chairperson of ITA Nayantara Pal Choudhuri said that tea exports would increase to 230 million kilograms during 2022 from 196 million kilograms in the 2021 calendar year.

She stressed that cheap quality tea from some countries which are not Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) compliant need to be addressed immediately. Moreover, the financial stress of the Darjeeling tea industry was plagued by falling production due to reducing yields, rising input costs and almost stagnant prices, Choudhuri added. 

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Choudhuri has also been appointed as the chairperson of the proposed Asia Tea Alliance of five tea-growing and consuming countries where the industry bodies of Sri Lanka, China, Indonesia, Nepal, and Bangladesh will be members. 

The Asia Tea Alliance in collaboration with Solidaridad Asia that provides sustainability solutions in agriculture and mining sectors will work on issues like trade promotion, boosting tea consumption and exchange of technology.