Tea Board Funds Capacity Building Training for STGs

Kolkata, Jan 28 (PTI) Tea Board will fund capacity-building training for small tea growers (STGs) across the country whose production volumes exceed more than 50 per cent of overall produced annually.

The Confederation of Indian Small Tea Growers Associations (CISTA) said that under the capacity building training programme, awareness on food safety, use of banned chemicals, use of pesticides and adoption of plant protection code (PPC) would also be discussed among the STGs.

In Assam, the programme will be conducted in 13 places including Jorhat, Dibrugarh and Kokrajhar, four places in West Bengal, and two places in Tamil Nadu.

In 2022, total tea production was around 1350 million kilogramme, out of which 52 per cent was contributed by the STGs.

CISTA has also submitted a status report on STGs to the commerce ministry seeking assistance to gain economies of scale by setting up clusters.

The association also said that the STGs are not getting remunerative prices for green leaf produced by them. PTI dc