Tea industry needs urgent attention.

Tea industry, one of the country's apparently trouble-free production sectors, is reportedly showing signs that warrant urgent and resolute actions to sustain its very existence in not so remote future. One of the curious features about the industry is that it has not significantly developed over the long period of time since the initial hard work done by the British planters in pre-partitioned India.

This is not to say that this promising sector has so long been left to its own fate. Some extension activities have taken place, newer technologies introduced to some estates, but absence of required investment, lack of gas, shortage of power etc., are believed to be largely instrumental to the deterioration of the industry, resulting in a sharp slump in production.

The industry is feared to be worst hit in its exporting venture. Newspaper reports say the country's tea export may suffer a severe setback after three years if necessary steps are not immediately taken to raise production. There are fears too about meeting domestic consumption in near future.

The most depressing feature is the drastic decline in exports in recent years. The highest volume that Bangladesh exported was in the year 2007 --10.56 million kgs fetching Tk 890 million. In the following year (2008) the volume slumped by more than 2.0 million kgs to 8.39 million kgs. Since then, there has been a dramatic fall in exports --3.15 million kgs in 2009, 0.91 million kgs in 2010.

Although the years 2011 and 2012 saw slight improvements --1.41 and 1.50 million kgs respectably, recovery appears to be far from sight. The country's current export destinations are Pakistan, Afghanistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Ukraine and the UK.

Beside exports, the country's tea production is also not able to keep pace with internal demands. It has been estimated that during 2012, the country produced around 64 million kgs of tea as against an internal demand for 63 million kgs.

Internal tea consumption is reportedly rising by a rather unusual rate of more than 13 per cent, contributed largely by population growth and urbanisation. This no doubt accounts for the sharp decline in export. Given the existing trend in production, the country may cease to be a tea exporter in a couple of years from now. Rather, it may have to import tea to meet its growing domestic demand.

The country has presently a total of approximately 116,000 hectors of land under tea cultivation, of which more than 16 per cent of the lands has reportedly become old and uneconomic.

Tea planters in anticipation of the woes are of the opinion that unless the government undertakes an immediate crash programme by way of providing khas lands aimed at expanding the crop's cultivation in the tea belts of greater Sylhet and Chittagong as well as soft loans to the owners, the scenario may turn from bad to worse soon. The signs are obviously ominous.

The age-old industry with its vast potential must not be allowed to languish in uncertainty owing to the administration's apathy and wrong decisions.


Source : thefinancialexpress-bd.com