Indian tea production this calendar is trailing behind 2016 with North suffering from prolonged dry winter conditions and South reporting drought impact. “Tea Board has just released March data which shows a sharp decline of 25 per cent in North to dip to 41.40 million kg (mkg) and five per cent fall in South to decline to 14.68 mkg. In all, India lost 21 per cent with production declining to 56.08 mkg”, Rajesh Gupta, compiler of annual Global Tea Digest told BusinessLine . “Our compilation shows that in the first quarter of 2017, India produced 88.61 mkg against 105.78 mkg in the same period of 2016”, he said.
This marked a decline of 17.17 mkg or 16 per cent. In the first quarter of current calendar, North India lost 19 per cent to dip to 49.25 mkg. Prolonged winter conditions brought down Assam’s production by 36 per cent to fall to 22.49 mkg. In the same months, South India produced 12 per cent less to total 39.36 mkg. With 28.31 mkg, Tamil Nadu continues to top the country’s overall production table. However, its output has dropped by eight per cent over last year. Kerala has lost 22 per cent to dip to 10.08 mkg. If this trend continues, the country will end 2017 producing about 1,220 mkg against 1,239 mkg produced in 2016.