Tripura identifies land outside border fence for tea cultivation

Tea industry in Tripura started over 100 years back, in 1916. However, after a century, tea from the state had to depend on auction centers in Assam and West Bengal. Without any brand for tea from Tripura, bulks of it often were reported to be smuggled into Bangladesh and sold under other brands.

In an effort to increase land under tea cultivation in Tripura, the Tripura Tea Development Corporation (TTDC) has started identifying suitable vacant plots outside the barbed wire fence on the Indian side. The plan, which started in December last year has finally got shape after the Corporation consulted with state government and got consent for the project.

Tripura shares 856 Kilometre long international border with Bangladesh which is mostly fenced except a few patches of roughly 70 Kilometre in total. Unlike the western border with Pakistan,  there is no ‘No Man’s Land’ in the Indo-Bangla international border.

Due to provisions of the 1971 Indira-Mujib Pact and Indo-Bangla Border Agreement signed in 1975 between Border Security Force (BSF) and the then Bangladesh Rifles (now Border Guards of Bangladesh), barbed wire fences were erected by India and border pillars were set up by Bangladesh at 100 yards distance from the zero line as per India-Bangladesh Border Agreement.

Speaking to reporters, TTDC chairperson Santosh Saha said the Corporation has already discussed the issue with the state government and a process has been initiated to identify suitable plots outside the Indian fencing in Tripura frontiers.

“As per the plan, we shall carry out the project with support of Border Area Development Project (BADP) and MG-NREGA. The local panchayat bodies were also asked to identify farmers for tea cultivation in such lands”, Saha told mediapersons.

He also informed that five farmers at Siman village of West Tripura district are already engaged with tea cultivation outside the border fence since years, long before the TTDC even thought of the such a plan.

The TTDC chairman also said there are plans to include tea in the list of daily necessities sold at Fair Price Shops through Public Distribution System (PDS). “We have spoken with Food Minister about distributing tea through fair price shops. We shall initially target 231 fair price shops with the Agartala Municipal Corporation. Tea will be sold at Rs. 17 per 100 grams at these shops”, Saha said.

On possibilities of exporting Tripura tea, Saha said the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh imports tea from Sri Lanka and other countries. He said tea Bangladesh’s domestic market holds good potential for marketing Tripura tea and said Bangladesh has been requested through the central government to import tea from the state.

Tea industry in Tripura started over 100 years back, in 1916, at Hiracherra tea estate in present Unakoti district. However, after a century, tea from the state had to depend on auction centers in Assam and West Bengal. Without any brand for tea from Tripura, bulks of it often were reported to be smuggled into Bangladesh and sold under other brands.

Tripura now has 58 operational tea estates, among which 42 are individually owned, 13 are operated under cooperative societies and 3 are run by the TTDC. Nearly 3,000 small tea growers also run their small tea estates with government support. As per government estimates, 6,885 hectare land area is under tea cultivation in the state, in which 3.58 crore kg green tea leaf or 90 lakh kg ‘made tea’ is produced annually.

The state’s tea industry still incurs a heavy loss every year, Santosh Saha claimed. He informed that the losses in tea gardens under the Corporation were minimized by Rs. 1 crore in the last one year by increasing production and spiking other unnecessary costs. The Corporation has plans to reduce lossess to zero by 2020.

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