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The government is actively considering to set up a Special Purpose Tea Fund for extending financial support to the tea industry for taking up tea replantation and rejuvenation on a large scale, as part of a series of measures for the revival of the Indian tea industry. This was indicated by Shri Kamal Nath, Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, at the Annual Conference of the United Planters Association of Southern India (UPASI) at Coonoor this morning. The 25 recommendations of the Stakeholders’ Conference on Tea held exactly a year ago in September 2004 formed the basis of the government’s policy decisions on tea since then, he said, adding that a Tea Advisory Committee had also been constituted to monitor implementation of these recommendations.
The Minister emphasised that the government was seized of the problems affecting the tea industry in the past few years due to unremunerative prices on account of the supply-demand mismatch, increasing cost of production, fall in export realisation etc., and recounted the steps taken to tide over the situation. In response to the demand of the industry including UPASI, the additional excise duty of Re. 1 per kg. was withdrawn. Further, “Government had also sanctioned two schemes, i.e. ‘incentive for production of orthodox teas’ and ‘assistance to the two R&D Institutions i.e. Tea Research Association (TRA) and UPASI-Tea Research Foundation, with an allocation of Rs.93 crore. The incentive for production of orthodox teas is expected to help in improving the availability of good quality teas for exports”, Shri Kamal Nath said. This was important, he said, as only high quality could ensure good prices and also give Indian tea a competitive edge in the global markets.
Giving a broad policy sweep on all plantation crops including coffee which was also suffering a price crisis since 1999, Shri Kamal Nath said the government had announced a Rs.287 crore package providing for the sharing of interest on Special Coffee Term Loans equally amongst banks, Government of India and the grower availing of the loan. Further, Finance Ministry had now been advised to request banks to lower the interest rates on these loans from 11% to 9% and the government had also waived old development loans and interest amounting to Rs.65 crore for the small coffee growers, he stated.
On rubber, Shri Kamal Nath said: “the market integration which has come into effect with the implementation of WTO agreement and consequent withdrawal of Quantitative Restrictions have made re-orientation of marketing strategies imperative for survival in the international rubber trade. The focus should, therefore, be on increased support to processing, product manufacture and marketing sectors”.
Taking note of the hardships faced by the cardamom and pepper growers due to fall in prices, the Minister referred several new schemes announced by the government to improve the productivity of cardamom in the country. Regarding pepper, he said there was stiff competition from other producing countries notably Vietnam as a result of which there had been an increase in imports. “However, I would like to add that a majority of the imports are meant for value addition and exports. We have taken stringent measures to stop fraudulent practices of misdeclaring and under-invoicing. In order to give relief to the oleo-resin industry, we have permitted import of light black pepper under the advance licence scheme, which will have no impact on the domestic prices”, he assured UPASI.
Shri Kamal Nath also said that India would emerge as a major player in the international Vanilla market by the year 2008 as a result of efforts underway to promote vanilla production. “The quality of vanilla produced in India is on par with the best in the world”, he said.
SB/MRS
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