Tea Board plans Rs 20 crore ad blitz

The Tea Board has proposed a Rs 20-crore advertisement campaign for generic promotion of tea. It will project tea as a health drink.

Disclosing this at a national seminar on tea, here, Tea Board chairman N K Das said the proposal had been sent to the government for approval. Tea Board will also set up a committee of planters and buyers to address the issue of grading tea.

Das pointed out that the government had already come out with new schemes and incentives for improving the quality of tea. These include 25 per cent subsidy on tea packaging machinery besides reducing the import duty on it.

The seminar was organised by the National News Service in association with the Federation of All India Tea Traders' Associations and the Delhi Tea Association.

Das said India was the largest consumer of tea at about 710 million kg a year, but the per capita consumption was still low.

Outlining concerns facing the industry, he mentioned tea exports had dropped substantially last year. Besides, issues concerning grading, packaging, quality and presence of impurities needed to be addressed.

Import of tea was a new challenge being faced by the domestic tea industry.  Last year, about 20 million kg of tea was imported. However, this year tea imports were significantly lower at around 6 million kg.

FAITTA chairman Darvesh Ghiyasuddin said the tea industry had been passing through a difficult phase for four years now.

The different levels of sales tax, ranging from 8 to 12 per cent, in different states, was hampering growth of tea trade. Since tea was the poor man's drink, sales tax should be limited to 4 per cent, he said.

He said tea traders in Andhra Pradesh were facing problems owing to the presence of iron filings in tea.

Though the presence of iron filings in tea was generally far below the permissible level of 250 ppm (parts per million), cases were being filed against tea dealers. The Prevention of Food Adulteration Act should be amended to overcome the problem, he said.

DTA president Ravindra Goel said tea should be given the same status as other beverages in terms of taxation.

Reduction of sales tax and a uniform tax structure in all states would enable tea to compete with synthetic beverages.

NNS chairman Kesar Singh Gupta said the problems of the tea sector had to be tackled urgently to help the country regain its top position in the global tea trade.