NILGIRIS: A five-member committee is conducting a study to find out irregularities in fixing prices for the tea leaf by holding discussions with planters, tea factories. They brought in leaf factories (stakeholders), based on the directions of district collector Lakshmi Bhavya Tanneru.
The committee is headed by chairperson Dr M Jayaraman, who is the GM of Aavin and comprises Karthik Vasan, GM in-charge district industrial centre, L Thenesh Kumar, Gudalur tahsildar, Jayanthi, assistant director of horticulture department and Urmila Devi, research scholar of Madras School of Economics.
The committee will hold meetings and direct interactions with planters and factories across the district, and submit recommendations to the collector.
“There are 65,000 registered small tea growers, and 180 tea factories in the district. In the last one week, we met some planters and they said middlemen should be eliminated and tea factories should give fair prices since cultivation cost has increased. They also want subsidy for manure and machinery for harvesting tea leaves. We also met with tea factory owners and they said profits have come down due to cost of transporting tea from factories to auction centres,” a committee member said.
“We have yet to arrive at a fair price, and it will be decided after conducting several rounds of meetings with stake holders and submit our recommendations to the collector, who will take a final call,” the member added.
Small tea growers can also meet the committe at Aavin Ooty office on February 25 to submit their opinions and also send them via email at teaissuesnilgiris@gmail.com