India’s tea production is likely to witness a dip of 20-25% this July due to damage caused by heavy rain and floods in parts of North Bengal in past few weeks.
Heavy rains in Dooars and Terai regions in north Bengal have severely damaged tea crop with many gardens being washed away by the flooded waterbodies.
“The overall situation in north Bengal is very bad due to incessant rains for the last several days with many bushes under the water,” Joint Secretary of Indian Tea Association (ITA) Sujit Patra told PTI.
Major companies having gardens in north Bengal are Andrew Yule, Goodricke and Luxmi Tea among others.
CEO and MD of Goodricke Arun Singh told ET “the situation in north Bengal is very grave. Flood water has entered the gardens and workers’ colony.”
He added that over the past one week, 40 inches of rainfall has entered tea estates in Dooars. The problem does not end here. Once the water begins to recede, there will be pest attack that will affect tea leaves.
Dooars had produced 23.99 million kg of tea in July 2015. The total production in India was 154.37 million kg in July.
In 2015, India had produced 1208.66 million kg of tea. Dooars region annually produces 300 million kg of tea.
Image Credit: HuffingtonPost.in
