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Small tea-growers' emergence brings theft problems to big gardens

Nitin Gogoi in Guwahati

The unemployed in Assam don't seek jobs, they get into tea biz

There is the flip side to the Green Revolution II, so to say. Ever since big tea factories started buying green tea leaf from small tea-growers in the early Nineties, growing tea on a small patch of land has become lucrative. So has stealing green leaf from big gardens.

As PK Kaul, vice-president of the Assam Tea Company says: "Stealing of green leaf is an unrecognised menace. As prices go up, big gardens will face a major problem." Currently, big factories pay about Rs 10 per kg of green leaf. In two years' time, this rate is likely to go up to about Rs 12. "If a labourer can pluck and deliver even 10 kg a day, he earns about Rs 50, a hefty sum for a daily wage earner who does not earn more than Rs 30 in legitimate wages," points out a senior manager.

Since gardens cannot really be protected given that they are spread over a very large area, there are increasing instances of green leaf theft. Says another manager: "It is all very well to encourage small tea-growers but we must guard against spurious persons who simply register themselves as small growers and then proceed to organise theft of green leaf to earn a quick buck."

Leading lights among small tea-growers are aware of the bad name given to them by some of these unscrupulous operators. Their association is taking steps to overcome the problem.

The small growers of course have their own set of difficulties. Most of the land on which they are cultivating tea today belongs to them only temporarily with the state government having failed to give them permanent settlement. "Since we do not have pucca ownership of land, we do not get bank finances or any other subsidy," points out Dilip Saikia, an office-bearer of the Small Tea Growers' Association.

Robin Barthakur, secretary, ABITA, remarks: "The small tea-growers are a new phenomenon. Let's give them a chance to prove themselves."

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