Tripura Chief Minister Dr Manik Saha on Thursday laid the foundation stone of state’s first tea auction centre here and said that the tea industry gained pace in recent years and it would further boost the state’s economy in the coming days.

There are two tea auction centres in Assam – one in Guwahati and another one in Jorhat.

After laying the foundation stone of the proposed tea auction center, the Chief Minister said on the X : “A leap towards development of tea industry in Tripura. Today laid the foundation stone of Agartala Tea e-Auction Centre was laid at Gurkhabasti complex.  This will largely benefit the tea growers of the State & take Tripura tea to new heights”

Tea industry, which is over 108 years old in Tripura with the Hiracherra tea estate in North Tripura district was the first tea garden set up in 1916.

Addressing the function, Dr Saha said that despite 90 lakh tea produced in the state annually, tea had to take outside the state and it involved different ancillary processes like shouldering godown costs, transport cost, manpower involvement.

He said that tea produced in Tripura ferried to West Bengal for auction till now and was often sold under other brands, owing to which the tea sector of the state was not getting its fair share of benefits despite the manifold rise of acceptance of state’s tea recently.

“Tea assumes an integral part of popular etiquettes today as it is a part of India’s culture. The BJP-led state government has been trying to develop it after it came to power in 2018.”

Noting that most people can’t live without tea, Dr Saha said that tea is often a bridge for relationships with one another.

Since monarchical times, the tea industry has grown in Tripura and currently 54 big estates and 2800 small tea gardens are functioning in the state.  Tripura merged with the Indian union in October 1949.

The Chief Minister said that Tripura is the fifth highest tea producer in the country after Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala

“Since auction centre was set up now, godown and manpower costs would come down and quality of tea would also be improved,” he said and criticized the erstwhile governments for not taking appropriate steps to develop the industry.

The industry suffered and many tea gardens were damaged during the armed insurgency period and several tea garden executives and owners were kidnapped and killed by the militants.

He also said the erstwhile Left Front government kept wages of tea garden workers at Rs 105 per day while the BJP government has increased it to Rs 176.

“Prime Minister Narendra Modi stressed upon being vocal for local and self-reliance. We are following in his footsteps. Our GDP has increased, Tripura has a per capita income of Rs 1.5 lakh now.  It should increase further. But it will happen only when we market and develop our resources. We can’t perpetually depend on central funds alone,” the Chief Minister said.

Informing that the state government is developing bamboo-based industries, cashew nut factories, incense stick factories, rubber-based factories, Dr Saha said that investors are now coming in the state to invest in various sectors.

He said that Chit funds ravaged people in the state including teagarden workers and many of them lost a large quantum of money to various chit fund organizations earlier.

“Our government has decided to turn the tea industry into a profit-making sector. A brand and logo for Tripura tea was adopted in 2018 and tea from the state is sold since then as Tripureshwari Tea.

Tea garden workers can avail benefits under different centrally sponsored beneficiary schemes, the government has decided to give some land to all tea garden workers and 2877 have already got their lands, which means they can now avail PMAY housing benefits,” the CM said.

The Chief Minister also said that his government is considering starting a subject on tea-science at Maharaja Bir Bikram (MBB) University here soon.

Tripura has 54 tea estates including 12 cooperative run estates and 3 public estates spread across 12,990 hectares.

The state has 22 tea processing factories including 15 private and five cooperative-run factories and around 15,000 workers are engaged with the tea industry.

Most of the tea estates produced orthodox tea till 2000 but moved on to CTC in recent years.