The Confederation of Indian Small Tea Growers’ Associations (CISTA) has urged Union Commerce Minister Anand Sharma to initiate steps for the early repeal of Sections 12 and 14 of the Tea Act 1953 to benefit small tea growers, according to a CISTA release.

Sections 12 and 14 of the Tea Act require that all growers, big and small, must obtain planting permission and registration from the Tea Board after furnishing the necessary documents in support of ownership of the land being used for growing tea and soil testing reports.

Unfortunately, more than 80 per cent of small growers do not have clear land titles. As a result, they are unable to obtain Tea Board registration and are, therefore, not eligible for many of the benefits available under the Board’s welfare schemes.

“These provisions were incorporated when the minimum size of a tea garden was above 10.12 hectares,” says a CISTA memorandum to the Commerce Minister drawing his attention to the much smaller average land holding of small growers and that too without clear land titles. These provisions, therefore, were not relevant any more, the memorandum observes.

Referring to the Union Government’s decision to launch a pilot project in Assam for issuing biometric identity cards to facilitate the identification of small growers in the State and to complete the job by March 2013, CISTA has urged the Union Minister to introduce similar projects in other States also to cover all small growers in the country. The card should ultimately be treated as proof registration with Tea Board.

There are about two lakh small tea growers in the country and together they account for 28 per cent of the total tea growing area and 26.25 per cent of total tea production.

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