Panel plea for tea sector - Hill planters want speedy launch of special zone

Darjeeling, Aug. 3: The Darjeeling Tea Association has put forward a proposal for the formation of a joint working committee for the speedy implementation of the Agri-Export Zone (AEZ), which has been in the pipeline for almost six years.

The AEZ had been mooted for the Darjeeling tea industry for the promotion of the sector through various schemes.

The DTA also wants the panel, comprising the representatives of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration, the state government and the tea industry, to look into other issues related to the sector.

The demand for the joint committee was made at the annual general meeting of the DTA, the largest body of tea planters in the Darjeeling hills.

“Darjeeling tea industry forms less than one per cent of the Indian tea industry and the government needs to come up with specific policies for the sector in the hills. A joint working committee should be formed to look into the welfare of the industry,” said Sanjay Bansal, the outgoing chairperson of the DTA.

Bansal was today replaced by S.S. Bagaria as the chairperson of the association.

“The Centre had issued a gazette notification according the status of an Agri-Export Zone to the Darjeeling tea sector on August 2, 2005. But the memorandum of understanding has not yet been signed,” said Bansal.

The gazette notification was issued by K.T. Chacko, the director-general of foreign trade. After the notification, an MoU was to be signed by the Centre, the Bengal government and the Agriculture and Processed Food Products Development Authority — an autonomous body under the Union commerce and industry ministry — to set up the AEZ.

The AEZ entailed an investment of Rs 216.65 crore, of which Rs 51.77 crore was to flow from various central government agencies in the form of schemes, subsidies, concessions and waivers. The state’s share was supposed to be Rs 4.4 crore, while the rest of the investment was to be made by the private sector.

Unlike the special economic zone, the AEZ does not comprise a physically defined area, but is a combination of various initiatives by the central and state governments for the promotion of a particular scheme.

Apart from the delay in the implementation of the AEZ, the DTA wants issues related to the renewal of land lease and launch of tourism in tea gardens to be taken up by the joint working committee.

The leases of 30-odd gardens have not yet been renewed because their owners were unwilling to pay a one-time charge (salami) of Rs 15,000 per hectare, which was implemented in the mid-1990s.

“We are paying a rent of Rs 44 per acre annually (2.5 acres make a hectare) to the tauzi department, but because of the salami problem, many gardens do not have the lease documents though they have the land rent receipts. This issue is yet to be addressed till now,” said Bansal.

Garden owners also want to keep 10 hectares of their estates aside for tea tourism. “There was a disconnect among the different departments, and the most important clearance needed to come from the land and land reforms (department). Till now even, this issue has not yet been solved,” Bansal said. 

VIVEK CHHETRI/TT