PALAMPURI: Known for its unique flavour, the world famous Kangra Tea that was introduced to Himachal Pradesh by the British in the 1850s, is now dying a slow death. The tea cultivators once again have requested the state to lend them a helping hand by giving them financial assistance as the land under tea plantation has now come down to just 2,300 hectares and only 9 lakh kgs of tea is produced annually.
The reasons behind reduction in areas can be attributed to no subsidy, lack of labour from Jharkhand and West Bengal, high cost of production and the land holdings getting smaller by the day. Manuj Mandhotra, president of Kangra Valley Small Tea Planters Association said, “We have been demanding that the tea planters should be given subsidies but nobody has listened to our demands till date.
Until 2003, we were given subsidies and then it was stopped. We want a 50 per cent subsidy on tea plucking machines. At least 75 per cent of the tea planters in Kangra have switched over to mechanized cultivation due to shortage of labour.”