KOLKATA, Jan 23: Small tea growers (STGs) have called on the Union Commerce Ministry to implement measures aimed at limiting the import of inferior quality crops from nations such as Kenya and Nepal to safeguard the domestic sector.
The Confederation of Indian Small Tea Growers’ Association (CISTA), representing STGs, sent a letter to Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, highlighting that they contribute over 53 percent to the country’s total tea production.
The Tea Board defines STGs as farmers cultivating on plots of up to 25 acres, predominantly found across various tea-producing areas.
CISTA estimates that there are around three lakh STGs in India.
Data from the Kenya Tea Board showed that between January and October 2024, India imported 13.71 million kilograms of tea from Kenya, a significant increase from 3.53 million kilograms during the same timeframe in 2023.
CISTA argues that the tea imported from Kenya is of low quality and often mixed with local tea for domestic sales as well as re-exported under Indian labels.
Furthermore, India imported 13.66 million kilograms of tea from Nepal in 2023, according to CISTA’s letter.
With the domestic industry experiencing an oversupply, the Tea Board of India has mandated earlier closures of tea gardens for the past eight years, intending to enhance quality, pricing, and market supply.
CISTA views this as a contradiction since the government simultaneously seeks to manage oversupply by enforcing early closures while permitting the importation of cheap, low-quality teas from abroad.
They warn that these inferior teas will soon inundate the domestic market, posing a considerable threat to the Indian tea sector’s pricing and quality standards.
CISTA has appealed to the central government and local authorities, including those of West Bengal and Assam, to address this issue.
The Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between India and Nepal facilitates zero-duty tea imports from Nepal. (PTI)
