A tea testing centre closer home

File picture of a labourer at a tea garden in Assam

Silchar, Feb10 : Tea growers of Assam, particularly those who export their produce, can heave a sigh of relief with the Tea Board of India taking an initiative to establish a state-of-the-art tea testing centre next door in Calcutta in association with the Tea Research Association (TRA).

The proximity to Calcutta will help the exporters in a big way as all along tea was required to be sent to Hyderabad for testing which was a costly affair.

The secretary-general of the Indian Tea Association (ITA), Monojit Das Gupta, said the need for such a testing facility closer to the country’s largest tea producing region — Assam produces more than 50 per cent of the country’s tea — had long been felt by the tea industry as the importers were insisting on testing of the various pesticide residues.

The testing facility in Calcutta will also come in handy for growers in the Dooars and Darjeeling in West Bengal. 

Das Gupta said such testing procedures, using sophisticated technology now being undertaken in a scientific private laboratory in Hyderabad, entailed an exorbitant cost.

The tea planters’ community in the Northeast had been trying to impress upon the Union commerce ministry for quite some time about the urgency of installing a tea testing centre in Calcutta, he said.

Das Gupta said the tea board had already set up a panel of experts to examine the details of setting up of such a centre, including its total estimated outlay. 

The ITA has urged the Centre to consider the inclusion of Black Tea, which has also much export potential, in the scheme of things of Vishesh Krishi Gram Udoyog Yojana project. 

Das Gupta said the Union commerce ministry had already approved the proposal mooted by the tea industry to observe the centenary celebrations of the TRA next year with a grant of Rs 20 crore. 

He said this central fund would mainly be used in the execution of various schemes for the upgrade of the infrastructure of the research centres of the TRA, scattered in various tea growing areas in the country, in the next two years.

The secretary general said the India International Tea Convention (IITC), scheduled to be held in Kochi in Kerala in a three-day conclave from February 19, would be an annual feature of the Indian tea industry.

The sponsors of this big jamboree, he added, had decided that such a gala annual event of the Centre and the tea industry would be alternatively held in north and south India. 

Guwahati hosted one such convention in November 2007.