By Our Correspondent
Ilam, July 7: Suryodaya Municipality in Ilam has established a separate tea section to look after the development and promotion of the cash crop. The municipality is one of the strongholds of tea production in Ilam.
Following the increasing problems in the tea sector, the Municipality, where the beautiful Kanyam tea garden is and most farmers grow tea, has established a separate tea section forming a secretariat to resolve the mounting problems surfaced in tea sector.
Establishment of secretariat and section under the local government authority is expected to be crucial in solving different problems faced by farmers, industrialists and market.
The secretariat formed under the coordination of Devendra Sharma Acharya, coordinator of economic committee of the municipality, comprises representatives from farmers, tea industries, Tea and Coffee Development Board as its members and industry officer of the municipality as its member secretary.
Coordinator of the secretariat Acharya said that in the first stage, the secretariat had started the process of improving the quality of green tea leaf, monitoring of industries and creating a position of tea inspector.
After the establishment of tea section, there would be one quality inspector of tea in each 14 wards of the municipality to look after the quality of tea produced by local farmers.
“Currently, industries have been reluctant to pay Rs. 40 per kilogram of green tea leaves as fixed by the municipality. We are expecting to resolve this problem by controlling the quality of tea leaves produced by farmers through the supervision of quality inspector,” Acharya said.
The problems prevailing between the farmers and industrialists have also started to diminish gradually after the restriction in export of tea to India for the last few months, he said.
However, export of tea to India, which had been stopped after the enforcement of lockdown, has now resumed. According to Suryodaya Tea Producers Association, tea export to India has resumed through Kakadvitta customs point.
“Tea export has resumed. We have made agreement with the municipality regarding the price of green tea leaves. We are ready to pay Rs. 40 per kilogram for the green leaves if the farmers supplied quality tea leaves as per the standard,” said Gopal Kattel, secretary of the association.
The municipality has allocated around Rs. 160 million for the promotion and development of tea.
The municipality informed of the Rs. 160 million provided by the State government, around Rs. 120 million would be spent for the centre.
The municipality has also allocated Rs. 5 million to provide interest subsidies to cooperatives wishing to establish industry by taking loan from the banks.
Mayor of the municipality Rana Bahadur Rai said that the tea section was established considering the value chain of tea in the main area of tea production in the district.