Less Response For Special Purpose Tea Fund

Kolkata: The response of tea companies to the Special Purpose Tea Fund (SPTF) this year will be less than hope. As a result, the demand for loan as well as subsidy will be at the most 50 per cent of the estimates, if the current trend is any indication. The current year's loan requirement under SPTF has been pegged at Rs 167.56 crore and the subsidy requirement at Rs 90 crore. The estimates were prepared on the basis of the assumption that during the year a total of 4,095.38 hectares would be brought under replantation, another 2,363.77 hectares under replacement, 6,036.8 hectares for uprooting and 1,136.17 hectares for rejuvenation, totalling 13,632.12 hectares.
Although 300 tea companies covering more than 500 gardens have shown interest in SPTF, the number of applications received so far has been insignificant. The majority of the tea companies showing interest have their activities concentrated in Assam. There are 147 such companies with a total of 300 gardens, followed by West Bengal 100 companies with 129 gardens, Tamil Nadu 20 companies with 23 gardens, Kerala 16 companies with 37 gardens, Tripura 13 companies with 16 gardens and Karnataka two companies with as many gardens.

Even those who did uprooting in 2005 and are now planning replantation will find it hard to obtain assistance under SPTF unless letters of consent accompanies their applications from their respective bankers. Tea Board sources, however, indicate that the cases of those tea companies that had earlier applied for subsidy under a separate scheme, namely, Tea Board's ongoing subsidy scheme, will also be considered for assistance under SPTF.