Two Leaves and a Nip in the Bud.

(From Indian Express)

THE good news first: India is still the world's largest producer of tea. The bad news: Its share in world export has plummeted from 50 per cent in 1950 to 13 per cent (2001 figures). With the tea industry facing a gamut of other problems, this news could be just what the doctor didn't order. To top it all, starting today, the production cost of tea will go up further with the labourers' unions - the most influential of which is the INTUC-affiliated Assam Chah Mazdoor Sangh, led by Lok Sabha member and Assam Congress president Paban Singh Ghatowar - refusing to agree to an Indian Tea Association request to defer an agreement to increase the wages. The downward spiral began in 1998. ''Till then, things were actually smooth, but since 1998 we are really in a bad shape,'' says K R Bhagat, former chairman of the Assam Branch Indian Tea Association (ABITA). Others in the industry even prefer to call it an ''unprecedented depression.'' In 1999 came a severe drought, resulting in a slide in production from an all-time high record of 870 million kg the previous year to 805 million kg. However, though supply went down, prices refused to go up; in fact, they actually fell from an average of Rs 76.43 per kg in 1998 to Rs 72.80 per kg the next year. The year 2000, however, registered a recovery on the production front, with the total output going up to 846 million kg. But the prices continued to fall, averaging Rs 62.39 per kg for the year. The current year has been even worse. The average price in the Guwahati Tea Auction Centre from January to June this year stood at as low as Rs 53.37 per kg against Rs 76.10 during January-June 2001. As if that were not bad news by itself, an agreement between the ITA and the labourers' unions will add Rs 5.45 to the daily wages and push up the production cost of per kg of tea by Rs 3 from September 1. The agreement is four years old, implementation having been deferred, ironically, for better economic circumstances. ''We had a series of discussions with the unions to further postpone the implementation and maintain labour costs. But now there is no way out but to increase the wages,'' says Dhiraj ...