Orthodox tea production to touch 130 million kg
Orthodox tea production during the next five years is expected to touch 130 million kilogram, for which the government would provide a subsidy of Rs 100 crore. Tea Board chairman Mr Basudeb Banerjee said that the present production level of orthodox variety was 80 million kg. He said countries like Russia, which was once a market for CTC, were gradually shifting to the orthodox variety due to rising level of incomes in that country. Other countries like the UK, Egypt and Pakistan were also shifting to the orthodox variety. So it was imperative to increase orthodox tea production, Mr Banerjee said.
During the Eleventh Five Year Plan, financial assistance to Tea Board had been increased to Rs 800 crore, as compared to Rs 350 crore in the Tenth Five Year Plan. Mr Banerjee said that the government had also sanctioned an amount of Rs 130 crore for machinery upgrade. Regarding exports, he said that the Iraq was an important market and the board was looking at exploring it during the current calendar year. “We hope to regain the Iraq market this year”, he said. He added that exports to Pakistan during 2007 was just over nine million kg. India was expected to raise exports to Pakistan, where the Kenyan tea has been the major competitor.
During the current year, Kenyan tea production was expected to take a hit due to drought and political reasons and the prices would remain firm due to short supply. Meanwhile, Tea Board has entered into an agreement with NSE.IT for designing of software for electronic auction of tea. It hopes e-auction would start from November 2008 at all the six centres of Kolkata, Guwahati, Siliguri, Coonoor, Kochi and Coimbatore. Earlier attempt to introduce e-auction failed due to glitches in the software which was developed for it.
Tags: Kenyan tea production, Orthodox tea production, Tea Board