Tea industry needs funds timely
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23/04/2008
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Assam Tribune (Guwahati)
Though the Government of India has announced a series of sops to the Tea industry in the Budget for the current financial year, industry sources said that it would be beneficial only if the funds are released on time. The Union Finance Minister, P Chidambaram, in the Budget, announced that an amount of Rs 40 crore would be provided for the special purpose tea fund for re-plantation and rejuvenation of the tea bushes. However, tea industry sources pointed out that the Government's decision would be beneficial for the industry only if the funds are released on time. Industry sources said that the failure of the Government of India to release funds on time for payment of incentives under the North East Industrial Policy, 1997 defeated the very purpose of the incentives. Sources revealed that as per the policy, the tea gardens were supposed to get capital investment subsidy and subsidy on interest on capital investment, but cases are pending since 2005 because of the failure of the Government to release the funds. The Director of Industries, Assam, processed the proposals and sends it to the NEDFi for the disbursement of the funds to the concerned gardens and companies, but the NEDFi has not been able to disburse the amounts on time as the Centre did not release the required amounts. If the Government fails to ensure timely release of funds for the special purpose tea fund to the concerned gardens on time, it will defeat the very purpose of creating the fund, industry sources said. The Union Government has announced a decision to launch a crop insurance scheme for tea, rubber, tobacco, chilli, ginger, turmeric, pepper and cardamom. But industry sources here refused to comment on the same at this moment saying that the benefits of the scheme would be known only after the parameters and modalities for getting the benefits under the scheme are announced. Till date, introduction of a crop insurance scheme is at a proposal stage. Let the scheme come into reality and only then the benefits would be known, industry sources said. However, Tea industry sources hailed the decision of the Government of India to provide a centenary grant of Rs 20 crore to the Toklai Experimental station, Jorhat for upgrading its facilities and expanding its activities to cover other North Eastern states, North Bengal and Darjeeling. Industry sources said that the grant would be beneficial for the Experimental station to upgrade its facilities and the contribution of the station to the Tea Industry cannot be ignored by anyone.