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Director of ‘tea development’, Tea Board of India, Kolkatta, S. Soundararajan (2nd from right) along with others during his visit to Nagaland.[/caption]
Dimapur, Nov. 17 (EMN): In what could be a huge impetus for the tea farmers and tea industry in Nagaland, the director of ‘tea development’ from the Tea Board of India (TBI), S. Soundararajan was on a two day visit to the state recently and interacted with the state government officials, the tea farmers and expressed his views that on consolidating the tea cultivation in Nagaland.
This is the first visit by a high official from the Tea Board of India, headquartered at Kolkatta to Nagaland. During the two-day visit on Nov. 12 and 13, Soundararajan interaction with the chief secretary, the finance secretary and many other high officials. The director of tea board also interacted with officials of All Nagaland small tea growers association (ANSTGA).
During the interactions, Soundararajan mainly stressed on consolidation of Nagaland tea cultivation.
Saying that most of the green tea leaves produced in Nagaland go to outside the state, the director expressed that if the tea leaves gown in the state can be processed within the state, then Nagaland can have its own characteristic tea.
He said that the Tea Board of India under its ‘tribal area sub plan’ can assist the Farmer Producer Organisations to set up their big factories or individuals/SHGs to form mini tea factories. The scale of assistance is a back ended subsidy up to 40% with ceiling of INR 2 cr. for big factories and INR 33 lakh for mini-tea factories.
Under the tribal area sub plan scheme, there are other assistances such as subsidy on mechanical harvesters, pruning machine, weighing scale, power sprayers and others, said Soundararajan.
The president of ANSTGA, Shami Angh assured the director of tea development-TBI to create necessary awareness amongst the small tea growers of Nagaland. Angh also requested the director to set up a separate office of Tea Board of India and a TRA (tea research association) in Nagaland.