Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa announced that a Tea Cluster Common Facilitation Centre would be established near Mettupalayam in Coimbatore district at a cost of Rs 15 crore for the development of the Nilgiris district tea industry.
Releasing the souvenir of Golden Jubilee of Kundah Industrial Cooperative (INDCO) Tea Factory and also inaugurating the sale of 250 gram Ooty tea packets and the sale of Ooty tea at Aavin booths at a function organised at Yeddakad village ground, 30 km from here on Friday, she said that facilities such as storage godown, tea blending, packeting, testing lab and marketing would be set up at the Tea Cluster Co- mmon Facilitation Centre.
The CM also announced that a new INDCO Tea Factory would be started at Nanjanad near here at a cost of `5 crore, for the benefit of small growers of the region.
An incentive of one month salary would be paid to workers of Kundah INDCO factory and 15 days’ salary would be given to employees of the factory as Golden Jubilee incentive, she informed and assured that the government would extend all help to small tea growers.
Stating that cooperation was imperative for achieving goals, she asked the workers and growers to work in a cooperative manner to witness a good development. The CM recalled that she had inaugurated a computerised Tea Serve Auction Centre in the district in 2003 as the price was low at private auction centres. Earlier in 2001, the sale of Ooty tea was introduced in PDS outlets across the state.
She also recalled that Small Tea Growers Protection Scheme was started in 2005 and under which from July 2005 to March 2006 Rs 28 crore subsidy was disbursed to 50,152 small growers at the rate of Rs 4,200 per acre. At present, additional Rs 2000 was being given to 22,000 members of 15 INDCO Tea factories.
Noting that recently Rs 5.46 crore was granted for modernisation of 15 INDCO factories, she said that the government was implementing innovative schemes to run the establishments like Cooptex to earn profits.
