Kangra tea farmers stare at losses

DHARAMSALA: Tea farmers of Kangra are in distress as their produce is not getting adequate price and many producers are not finding any buyers

Updated At : 02:16 PM Sep 30, 2019 IST

Women work at a tea garden in Dharamsala. Photo: Kamaljeet

Lalit Mohan

Tribune News Service

Dharamsala, September 29

Tea farmers of Kangra are in distress as their produce is not getting adequate price and many producers are not finding any buyers.

Aman Pal Singh, general manager of the Mann tea factory in Dharamsala, said the tea was costing them about Rs 200 per kg but they were getting just Rs 140 to Rs 160 per kg in Kolkata market. Mann is one of the biggest tea estates of Kangra district and has been in existence since 1882.

The Palampur cooperative tea factory also faces losses this year due to low prices and lack of demand.

JL Butail, chairman of the factory, said this year, the prices of tea had crashed. They had dispatched about 12,000 kg processed tea to the Kolkata market. However, just 2,000 kg was sold in the auction and that also at prices ranging from Rs 140 to Rs 150 per kg.

“We suspect that the Palampur factory will suffer about Rs 1 crore loss in the financial year. If cash flow does not improve, the factory may stop payments to farmers,” he said.

The Palampur factory receives tea leaves from almost all farmers of the Palampur region. The factory processes and grades tea leaves and makes payments to farmers every month at Rs 100 per kg for unprocessed leaves. Butail said the state government should help tea farmers or else many would stop producing tea.

Sources said earlier there were four cooperative tea factories at Bir, Baijnath, Palampur and Sidhbari in Dharamsala. Three tea factories at Bir, Baijnath and Sidhbari had stopped operations. Only Palampur tea factory was functional.

The area under tea has also come down from 2,300 hectares at one time to just about 800 hectares.

Ashish Butail, Congress MLA from Palampur and also a tea farmer, said the government should allow tea tourism like in Assam and Darjeeling. However, the government was not allowing it even in private land holdings. This would help them in getting alternative income even when the industry was in recession and also help maintain tea gardens, he said.

Bracing for losses

We have doubts that the Palampur factory will suffer loss of Rs 1 crore in the financial year. If cash flow does not improve, the factory may stop payments to farmers. — JL Butail, chairman, palampur cooperative tea factory