Assam’s tea industry adversely affected by Nationwide lockdown

According to industry experts, 180-year-old Assam’s tea industry has been hit very hard by the nationwide lockdown due to Coronavirus and leads to massive revenue loss for the state.

The Assam tea industry gave employment around lakhs of regular and temporary workers and now the industry is closed from  March 22 but 50 per cent of the workforce was allowed to restart operations in mid of April.

The first blush of tea falls between the month of March and April which produces the best quality has been affected due to Lockdown.

Dipankar Deka the Assam branch secretary of the Tea Association of India notified that the first flush of tea is missed and everyone is hoping to get the second flush properly.

Deka said that the whole tea industry of Assam has faced a loss of around Rs 1,000 crore. As of now the production of tea has a resume but the problem of sales will arise.

The major problem faced by producers is that they can’t give tea samples to buyers in far states like Maharashtra and Rajasthan.

He said that they don’t have any conveyance to send the product samples at faraway States. The producers will not get a good price without proper participation in a tea auction and it is also difficult to pay workers without sales.

The tea gardens have only resume maximum of 50 per cent workforce but without proper selling of tea, the producer will not get the money to give salary to employees. There are around 2,000 workers they not only get a salary but also ration.