Iranian team to visit tea gardens in Bengal

A 10-member Iranian delegation will visit tea gardens and factories in Bengal over the next few days. Iran is one of the big emerging export markets for Indian tea.

The delegation comprises officials from Iran’s health ministry as well as exporters.

“We had invited them to come and visit our gardens and factories for a better idea of how Indian orthodox tea is processed. They will proceed to Sri Lanka from here,” said Basudeb Banerjee, chairman of the Tea Board.

The Tea Board and the commerce ministry have identified three potential markets to promote the beverage — Iran, Pakistan and Egypt.

Iran has introduced a plant master file under which Indian tea exporters will have to register their produce with the Iranian health ministry for quality checks.

“Doing business in the Iranian market is difficult because of its bureaucratic procedures,” said an industry expert. The Tea Board expects exports to Iran to touch 7 million kg this year.

In 2006, tea exports to Iran had dipped to 4.92 million kg, earning a revenue of Rs 48.41 crore. In 2005, India exported 6.62 million kg for a total revenue of Rs 70.68 crore.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, Iran is a tea producing country that relies on substantive imports. Iran consumes approximately 100 million kg, of which 50 million kg is imported. Output in the past five years has fallen as government assistance to producers declined.

Iran lifted the ban on Indian tea imports in early 2004, which was imposed because of the huge quantity of unsold domestic stock. Earlier, Iran had a rule under which for every kg of Indian tea imported, two kg of Iranian tea was blended with it. However, now the government has relaxed this regulation.

Iranians generally prefer Assam orthodox. India has an advantage this year as the price of Sri Lankan orthodox tea, which comprises a majority of Iran’s imports, has increased sharply.

Closed gardens

The Tea Board chairman today met owners of closed gardens and bank officials.

“I am going to present a report to all the stakeholders. There has to be a mutual consensus before a final decision,” Banerjee added.

He said one or two gardens could be reopened by new or existing owners.

Source: The Telegraph

Tata Tea locks out Dam Dim Tea Estate

Tata Tea confirmed its decision to declare a lockout in Dam Dim Tea Estate through a press release today even as trade unions expressed eagerness to end the deadlock.

The company said the management of the garden located in Malbazar, 45km from here, was compelled to shut the estate after the manager, three assistant managers and two welfare officers were “kept under illegal confinement” for 17 hours. The statement also said 46,000kg of plucked leaf was “completely damaged” as the workers had refused to unload them at the factory.

The workers, however, have denied the charges. Once a model garden in the Dooars, the fate of its 2,200 odd workers is now uncertain.

Officials of the Dooars branch of Indian Tea Association (DBITA), of which Dam Dim is a member garden, confirmed that both the Citu and Intuc have approached them to initiate dialogue that would end the deadlock. “There have been some correspondences from their side. We will look into them,” a DBITA official said.

Mani Darnal, joint general secretary of the Intuc-affiliated NUPW in Jalpaiguri, admitted that unlike other gardens, Tata estates like Dam Dim did not have any financial problems like irregular wages or pending provident funds. “It is a minor issue that could have been solved through bipartite meetings. We have asked the management’s representatives to fix a meeting and inform us,” said Darnal.

Trade union leaders had yesterday said they were not happy with the style of functioning of the new manager of the garden, Uday Bhanu Das. Apparently Das had switched the weekly holiday from Sunday to Monday. “Not only that, plantation workers were brought to the factory and factory workers sent to pluck tealeaves. If any worker protested, he was not assigned a job for 10 days at a stretch,” a CPM leader had said yesterday.

Officials at the district labour department said they would intervene only if the bipartite meeting fails.

Source: The Telegraph