Apart from exploring the non-traditional areas to be offered to the entrepreneurs for tea plantation in Himachal Pradesh, there is a need to expand, improve and rejuvenate the existing tea plantation areas and tea gardens in Kangra to make them more profitable for the tea growers, Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh said on Friday.
Presiding over the State Tea Development Board Meeting held here, the Chief Minister said that there was a need to expand the tea cultivation area, as of late, it had been observed that the tea gardens of Kangra were physically shrinking and diversions have paved the way for dwelling units. “It will no more be a profitable venture, if the tea gardens were not rejuvenated and new plantations were done,” he said.
The members of the Tea Board raised the issue that lot of tea gardens were being abandoned due to lack of adequate manpower.
Virbhadra Singh assured to take up the matter with Tea Board of India regarding the subsidy on tea plantation machinery including the mechanical harvesting equipment and pruning machines to the tea growers who own less than 10 hectares of area under tea plantation. He said that though the Kangra tea was the most relished and popular, yet the holdings with individual growers were small and the 10 hectare norm for subsidy needs to be relaxed.
On the suggestion of the members to study the model of Uttrakhand Tea Development Board Model (UTDB), wherein the tea plantation has been done on forest, panchayat and individual land by taking it on lease for a particular time period and the grant to small and marginal farmers, the Chief Minister assured that the details would be sought soon and efforts would be made to transform tea gardens through mechanisation process.
The Chief Minister said that latest equipments may be explored so as to bring them in use for the benefit of tea growers and it should be ensured that the land under tea plantation does not decrease. Besides, all possible assistance will be provided to the tea growers of the state, he said.
Additional Chief Secretary, Upma Chaudhary invited concrete suggestions to promote Kangra tea and regulate marketing for the same. She said that an initial proposal of around Rs 7.20 crore had been sent to Tea Board of India for all type of assistance to small and marginal tea growers and was being followed from time to time. She said that the tea plantation had also been initiated at Holta near Baijnath and efforts were to explore more such areas climatically suitable for the tea plants.