A group of Tamil Nadu MPs have urged Piyush Goyal, Minister of Commerce and Industry to address the grave issues afflicting the tea and coffee plantation industry and that of the plantation workers with urgency. They demanded minimum support price for the procurement of tea and coffee.
Coimbatore: A group of MPs including R. Natarajan(Coimbatore) K. Subbarayan (Tirupur), A. Raja (Nilgiris) K. Shanmuga Sundaram, (Pollachi) and M.Shanmugam(Rajya Sabha) have jointly written a letter to Piyush Goyal, Minister of Commerce and Industry to address the issues afflicting the tea and coffee plantation industry and that of the plantation workers with urgency. They demanded that minimum support price for the procurement of tea and coffee.
The MPs have noted that “Tea Plantation industry is actually agro-based industry of labour- intensive nature, providing assured employment to several lakhs of people, directly and indirectly, apart from proving itself as a good earner of foreign exchange”.
“It also contributes to the protection of sustainable environment in hilly areas and forest land”.
“Under the provisions of Plantation Labour Act, the management is obliged to provide to the workers facilities like housing, medical, education etc. At present, due to low value of price the tea industry is getting due to biased auction process, about 60% of price realizable, is being spent on wages and such related items” the letter said.
“The tea producers are unable to get desired prices for their finished goods due to cartelization of the auctioneers which prevent any competitive price being allowed to bid in the auction centers”
“There is obvious mismatch between the cost of production and actual price realized, which leads to acute financial crisis and many tea plantations are getting closed, and tea plantation workers suffer”.
“The Government should intervene and see that unfair trade practices like cartelization in the auction process are stopped and tea growers and producers get reasonable price for their products”.
“As you know, India is a major exporter of quality tea and we are getting good foreign exchange’ they said.
“However, because of some unscrupulous traders, the quality could not be maintained with the result, tea leaves are rejected in the international market and they land up for domestic consumption. So, certain incentives should be provided so that tea plantation companies are encouraged to produce quality tea for export” the MPs noted in the joint letter.
“We would therefore, urge upon you to examine the whole issue in a comprehensive manner and determine Minimum Support Price (MSP) on the basis of Swaminathan Committee recommendations, in consultation with all the stakeholders, to sustain the tea and coffee plantation industry and continue to provide employment” the MPs further noted.
The MPs have noted that “Tea Plantation industry is actually agro-based industry of labour- intensive nature, providing assured employment to several lakhs of people, directly and indirectly, apart from proving itself as a good earner of foreign exchange”.
“It also contributes to the protection of sustainable environment in hilly areas and forest land”.
“Under the provisions of Plantation Labour Act, the management is obliged to provide to the workers facilities like housing, medical, education etc. At present, due to low value of price the tea industry is getting due to biased auction process, about 60% of price realizable, is being spent on wages and such related items” the letter said.
“The tea producers are unable to get desired prices for their finished goods due to cartelization of the auctioneers which prevent any competitive price being allowed to bid in the auction centers”
“There is obvious mismatch between the cost of production and actual price realized, which leads to acute financial crisis and many tea plantations are getting closed, and tea plantation workers suffer”.
“The Government should intervene and see that unfair trade practices like cartelization in the auction process are stopped and tea growers and producers get reasonable price for their products”.
“As you know, India is a major exporter of quality tea and we are getting good foreign exchange’ they said.
“However, because of some unscrupulous traders, the quality could not be maintained with the result, tea leaves are rejected in the international market and they land up for domestic consumption. So, certain incentives should be provided so that tea plantation companies are encouraged to produce quality tea for export” the MPs noted in the joint letter.
“We would therefore, urge upon you to examine the whole issue in a comprehensive manner and determine Minimum Support Price (MSP) on the basis of Swaminathan Committee recommendations, in consultation with all the stakeholders, to sustain the tea and coffee plantation industry and continue to provide employment” the MPs further noted.