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Gorkhaland stir brews trouble for tea industry
The reverberations of the decision to create a separate Telangana are being felt far away in the industry that produces your morning cuppa. A...
The reverberations of the decision to create a separate Telangana are being felt far away in the industry that produces your morning cuppa. A three-day shutdown from July 29 to 31 in support of a movement for the creation of a separate Gorkhaland state out of West Bengal saw the Darjeeling tea industry losing Rs10 crore and the fuel and coal inventory of factories are about to hit rock bottom.
Since the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) called an indefinite strike from August 3, Darjeeling has been on the boil. The tea gardens have been exempted but industry stakeholders are apprehensive and keeping their fingers crossed.
This is the time for the monsoon flush (plucking season) in the Darjeeling tea gardens, which account for 30-35 percent of the total exports of the industry. They also account for 15 percent of annual production of Darjeeling tea. There are four such plucking seasons - first flush, second flush, monsoon flush and autumn flush.
Darjeeling has a total of 87 tea gardens, employing 50,000 permanent workers and 20,000 seasonal workers. "It is a million dollar question when they will lift the bandh. Now each day is critical. With every passing day factories are exhausting stocks of coal and petroleum to run their machines (that process the plucked tea leaves)," Sanjay Bansal, chairman of the Ambootia Tea Garden, said.
The permanent tea workers stay within the estates and "their ration is also at stake," he added. "Last year the industry suffered with a 20 percent loss of production due to drought. This year the weathr was good but the political weather seems to vitiate the industry's operations," Bansal said. Bansal said the stir has pressed the panic button among the international buyers as the industry stakeholders could not give them any assurance regarding the timeframe for dispatching orders.
"This turmoil is going to impact fund flow into the industry," he said. DTA secretary general Kaushik Basu said the total production of Darjeeling tea last year was nine million kg, of which around 70 percent was exported and the rest was consumed domestically. This niche tea is exported to Germany, Britain, Europe, the US and Japan. Darjeeling Tea Association (DTA) chairman SS Bagaria said the industry players were in talks with the West Bengal government and the local leaders to find a solution to the impasse and help the industry rebound.
