Small tea growers face challenges, look up to Centre for help
Facing various challenges, small tea growers want that they should be included in welfare schemes meant for farmers, especially crop insurance and income support. They have appealed to the Centre to include them under the ambit of various agricultural welfare schemes.
Subhashis Mittra
Facing various challenges, small tea growers want that they should be included in welfare schemes meant for farmers, especially crop insurance and income support.
They have appealed to the Centre to include them under the ambit of various agricultural welfare schemes.
Championing their cause, the Confederation of Indian Small Tea Growers Associations (CISTA) has written a letter to Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal.
In the letter, CISTA president Bijoy Gopal Chakraborty outlined certain "unique challenges" faced by the small tea growers (STGs).
Contending that they are faced with pricing challenges, the confederation pointed out that unlike larger growers, they lack bargaining power and are at the mercy of multinational tea companies when it comes to pricing.
"We fall under the purview of the Union Ministry of Commerce & Industry, leaving us ineligible for many key agricultural welfare schemes offered by the Agriculture Department," Chakraborty said.
He acknowledged the minister's recent query about potential schemes beneficial to STGs, and presented a list of 10 such programmes.
The CISTA requested inclusion in schemes ranging from crop insurance to income support, citing their potential to act as "price shock absorbers" for STGs and the broader production ecosystem.
"Farming is not charity. The livelihood of hundreds of thousands of small tea growers is at stake," Chakraborty wrote in the letter, requesting the government to liaise with the Agriculture Department and implement these essential schemes for them.
The schemes include the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-Kisan), the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Maandhan Yojana (PM-KMY), Kisan Credit Card (KCC), the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) and the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana (PMKSY).
