India signs peace pact with rebel group

Reported on channelnewsasia.com NEW DELHI: The Indian government on Saturday signed a pact with one of India's oldest rebel groups to end militant violence in the restive northeastern state of Assam and pave the way for peace talks. The United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), the largest separatist outfit in Assam, is seeking an autonomous ethnic region the state, but within the Indian union. Under the agreement, signed by representatives of the national and Assam governments and ULFA, the guerrilla group vowed not to stage any attacks while the search for a political resolution to the dispute was underway. The government also promised not to take any military action against ULFA members. The accord came a month after ULFA, which has been fighting for a homeland for ethnic Assamese since 1979, set out its demands in the first formal peace talks with the government. The group announced a unilateral ceasefire in July. The agreement "is the harbinger for future talks," India's Home Affairs Joint Secretary for the northeast, Shambhu Singh, told reporters in New Delhi. In the past two decades, more than 10,000 people have lost their lives to the insurgency in Assam, a region known for its tea, timber and oil reserves. Under the agreement, members of the rebel group, which numbers to around 600, will be put in special camps. ULFA said, however, that it would not surrender its arms and ammunition. "Why should we? This is not a final agreement," a senior leader of the group, Sashadhar Choudhury, told reporters. "This is a gentleman's agreement. We will see how the parleys go forward." Public support for the ULFA has dwindled in recent years after a series of attacks in public places that resulted in heavy civilian casualties. The ULFA leadership used to operate out of Bangladesh's capital Dhaka, but the movement was severely weakened by a 2009 crackdown by the Bangladeshi authorities, under pressure from India. The lone hold-out to the peace process has been ULFA's military commander-in-chief Paresh Baruah, who is believed to be hiding with around 100 armed cadres somewhere along the Myanmar-China border.

Training institute needed for skill development

Reported in Food & Beverage News The North-Eastern Tea Association (NETA) has asked the state government to set up a training institute, in order to develop the skills of the tea labourers in Assam. “Shortage of manpower is going to be a major challenge for the tea industry,” Bidyananda Barkakoty, chairman, NETA, informed FnB News in a chat over telephone. Following several years of prolonged struggle, the state's tea industry had undergone dramatic changes from 2007, yet some challenges confined mostly to shortage of manpower still remained. Barkakoty said that the setting up of the HRD (Human Resource Development) institute and mechanisation of plantations could be a two pronged-strategy for providing solutions to the problems faced by the industry. About mechanisation of plantations, currently there are some existing machines which are made in Germany, Japan, China and other countries and India has a lot of scope for improvements in the technology of the existing machines based on plucking standard, work culture, field drains and height of bush. “We are seeking the help of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in this regard,” said Barkakoty and added that skill development at all levels was lagging in the industry. He then said that Assam being the largest producer and exporter of tea, needed a training institute for workers right from the grass-root level to the managerial executives to meet the challenges for a sustainable development of the tea industry. Barkakoty confirmed that the Association has urged the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) for the setting up of the HRD institute in the state as this would not only help improve the management with new techniques, but also develop new markets and contribute to the overall growth of the tea industry. Meanwhile, he also urged the Government of Assam to persuade the Centre to declare tea as a national drink as it had evolved not just as a product or commodity, but as a culture from ages. He was addressing the 15th biennial meeting of the NETA recently, in Golaghat, Assam. At the meeting, he suggested various ways to improve the tea industry and projected analysis on different areas such as the opportunities, strengths, weaknesses, strategic plans and support to bring in changes to the existing problems of the tea industry.

Assam Tea should be state drink and national drink

Darjeeling may have something to say about the latter. Reported in Business Standard, by Supratim Dey The tea industry of Assam, a state which is synonymous in the outside world with its tea, has asked the government to declare the beverage as the ‘National Drink’ of India. It also wants tea to be declared as the ‘State Drink’ of Assam. “In view of its glorious past and in anticipation of its bright future, we sincerely feel that there is a genuine case for tea to be declared as the ‘State Drink’ of Assam. The logical step forward would then be to persuade the government of India to declare tea as the ‘National Drink’ of India,” said Bidyananda Barkakoty, Chairman of North Eastern Tea Association (NETA). For India, which is the largest consumer of tea and the second largest producer of tea (till 2005 India was the largest producer), declaring tea will have an “integrating effect”, feels Barkakoty. India consumes more than 80 per cent of its domestic production and 20 per cent of the world’s production. NETA had yesterday submitted a memorandum to Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi in support of its demand. In the memorandum, Barkakoty has put forth at least 33 reasons why tea should be declared as the ‘State Drink’ of Assam and the ‘National Drink’ of India. “If whiskey can be the national drink of Scotland, sugarcane juice the national drink of Pakistan, vodka the national drink of Russia, tequila the national drink of Mexico, why can’t tea be the national drink of India,” asked Barkakoty. Barkakoty feels that the tea industry in Assam, with its 180 years of glorious history, has already passed through many turbulent periods and is quite vulnerable to recession. Since the livelihood of millions of people is associated with the industry, it needs adequate support to protect it from being threatened. He feels that the proposed new status of this beverage would provide a major impetus to the brand building exercise of Indian tea. “Symbolism apart, the declaration will be a good idea for bolstering the marketing of Indian tea. Tea is now accepted as a health drink world over. This fact coupled with the ‘State Drink’ and ‘National Drink’ tag would also attract the large youth population of the country towards this health beverage,” said Barkakoty. Historically, Assam is the second commercial tea producing region after southern China. Southern China and Assam are the only two regions in the world with native tea plants. Assam produces more than 55 per cent of India’s total tea production and contributes 13 per cent of global tea production.

Urea shortage hits gardens - Uncertainty over tea production, export

Also in The Telegraph, by PULLOCK DUTTA Jorhat, Aug. 11: Shortage of fertilisers, especially urea, has hit the tea industry hard with the industry warning that unless supply is restored immediately, production would be affected this year. “Tea estates have not been able to apply urea in the second split and unless immediate supply is restored, tea production will be adversely affected and projected tea production and export targets cannot be met,” an Indian Tea Association communiqué said. Assam produces about 500 million kg of tea every year which is more than 50 per cent of the country’s total production. Urea is a must for the tea crop which is applied in three splits (phases): March-April, June-July and August-September. The Indian Tea Association (ITA) is in constant touch with the Union ministry of chemicals and fertilisers and the agricultural directorate of the Assam government in this regard. The shortage of one of the primary fertilisers for tea crop has been because of breakdowns of two units of the Brahmaputra Valley Fertilisers Corporation Ltd (BVFCL) — the only authorised supplier of the subsidised urea in the region. The ITA has also held a meeting with the BVFCL authorities recently in this regard. The BVFCL authorities were requested to make extra efforts to make the material available immediately. The BVFCL informed the ITA delegation that it was a routine for the BVFCL to shut down its units for maintenance every year in April for 15 days. This year, however, it had taken a considerable time to re-commission because of a major breakdown in both the units. To avert a similar crisis situation in the future, the tea industry should lift the material regularly latest by February/March each year and stock for the two major split applications — June-July and August-September, the ITA delegation was told. Sources in the tea industry said taking advantage of the shortage, various dealers were charging exorbitant prices for the material which is available in the black market. Till a couple of months back, urea was available in the market at Rs 5,640 per metric tonne but today the prices have soared to anything between Rs 8,000 and Rs 9,000. “We are buying urea at exorbitant rates and this has added to the cost of production manifold. It will be difficult for many gardens to buy fertilisers at this high price which will have an effect on production this year,” former chairman of the Assam Tea Planters’ Association (ATPA), Raj Barooah, said. A BVFCL official said that the central PSU would make enquiries regarding a few dealers charging higher prices for urea, and take necessary action including cancellation of dealership licence. He said that BVFCL had a commitment to supply the material to Manipur, Tripura, Bihar and Nepal apart from Assam. “We are trying to restore normal supply very shortly,” he said. Top

Clamour for 20% bonus - Tea union wants payment three weeks before Pujas

From The Telegraph, by WASIM RAHMAN Jorhat, Aug. 12: Clamour over Puja bonus has begun. The Assam Chah Mazdoor Sangha (ACMS), the state’s oldest and largest tea labourers’ body headquartered in Dibrugarh, has set the ball rolling with a letter to major tea planters’ associations, urging the industry to initiate the bonus payment process, paying at the maximum rate of 20 per cent. Union minister of state (independent charge) for DoNER and Dibrugarh MP Paban Singh Ghatowar is the president of the Sangha. In the early part of this decade, the bonus issue had reached a boiling point, leading to police firing on agitating labourers in Tinsukia district in 2002. But with the fortunes of the tea industry looking up during the past few years, bonus payments had gone smoothly. In his letter to the industry a few days back, ACMS general secretary Dileshwar Tanti requested that the “quantum of bonus” be announced and paid at least three weeks ahead of Durga Puja. He asked the tea estates to submit copies of their balance sheets and computation statements for the previous fiscal (2010-2011) to the Sangha’s central office in Dibrugarh by August 30. Taking the “hopes and aspirations” of the workers into consideration, the letter also urged the industry to declare and pay the bonus to the workers at one go rather than in instalments. Sangha sources said most of the time, the gardens did not comply with the request to submit balance sheets, which allowed “outside forces” to take advantage of the situation to fuel unrest among the labourers. Payment of bonus to industrial employees is mandatory under Payment of Bonus Act, 1965, which says that employees earning up to Rs 10,000 per month have to be paid bonus at a minimum rate of 8.33 per cent and maximum of 20 per cent, on the basis of the employers’ earnings in the previous fiscal. Tanti, a former MLA, told The Telegraph that a meeting between representatives of major tea companies, tea was scheduled to be held at the Sangha’s central office in Dibrugarh in the first week of September to discuss the bonus issue. This was being done to ensure that the process of bonus payment passes off smoothly and peacefully. He said since business in the last fiscal was “not bad”, they wanted the industry to pay maximum bonus. “We want the gardens to pay the bonus three weeks before Puja so that workers could get enough time to do their shopping,” Tanti added. According to industry sources, the matter should be sorted out amicably, as the industry is on a revival mode with tea prices going up. In the past two years, most of the estates and big companies, including MNCs, in Tinsukia and Dibrugarh districts, paid bonus at the rate of 20 per cent, while a majority of the state’s gardens paid 17 per cent. Assam Tea Planters’ Association additional secretary Anjan Kumar Bhuyan said the Sangha’s request had been intimated to the member gardens. Dhiraj Gowala, assistant general secretary of the influential Assam Tea Tribes Students’ Association (ATTSA), too, has demanded 20 per cent bonus for the workers.

Assam to get Northeast's first integrated tea park

Reported in the Economic Times GUWAHATI: The first integrated tea park of the Northeast will come up at Chaygaon on the outskirts of Guwahati. Around Rs 23 crore will be invested in the project. The pre-feasibility report of the park is already prepared. Sources in Assam Industrial Development Corporation (AIDC) told ET: "We have identified 200 bighas of land for the tea park. We have already purchased and acquired 60 bighas. Process is on for procuring the remaining." Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi, during his meeting with deputy chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia, said that though tea is the biggest industry in Assam there was not a single integrated tea park in the state, which could cater to the needs of the industry. "The AIDC has taken steps to set up the tea park, which will create worldclass infrastructure for processing, warehousing, blending and packaging on the industry cluster concept. Tea export from the state will increase substantially with the operation of the park," the sources added. Based on the techno-economic feasibility report, AIDC has re-casted the project cost from Rs 39.67 crore to Rs 23.40 crore. The fund is expected to be generated from the leased out space and assistance to the state for developing export infrastructure and allied activities. Currently, Guwahati has around 14 lakh square feet of warehousing facilities scattered in different locations. Assam's tea production was estimated at 480.2 million kg (mkg) last year, which was down by 19.7 mkg compared to the previous year's production of 499.9 mkg. Tea plantation is expanding fast in non-traditional areas and the park is expected to assist the growers in the non-traditional areas. While Assam and Tripura are traditional tea-growing states, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram and Sikkim constitute the non-traditional areas. The Northeastern region accounts for 55% of the area under tea and 53% of the production. Tripura produces 7.5 mkg annually. The non-traditional areas together produce 2.98 mkg annually.

Reverse migration - Assam tea workers leaving the region

Reported in several online newspapers. This story from The Hindu, by Sushanta Talukdar About 300 tea garden workers of an estate in Assam have left their jobs and gone back, along with their families, to their ancestral places in Telangana in search of greener pastures. Captains of the 180-year-old tea industry in the State are worried that such reverse migration is likely to aggravate the problem of shortage of labour, which the industry has started experiencing. Chariman of North Eastern Tea Association (NETA) Bidyananda Barkakoty revealed this trend during his speech at the 15{+t}{+h} biennial General Meeting of the association held in the upper Assam town of Golaghat on Saturday. “Shortage of labour is going to be a major challenge for the tea industry. We have already started to feel the pinch. Absenteeism has already been an area of concern. We have taken up this issue with Assam Chah Mazdoor Sangha (ACMS) at several meetings. Absenteeism and shortage of labour, though inter-related, are two different issues. Shortages in many gardens are felt even without absenteeism. Reverse migration is taking place in some areas. About 300 families have left the tea estate and gone back to Telangana,” said Mr. Barkakoty, who has been re-elected NETA chairman for 2011-2013. Mr. Barkakoty, however, declined to divulge the name of the tea estate, but confirmed that migration of tea garden workers from Assam to Kerala had also been taking place. To overcome the problem of shortage of manpower and absenteeism, the NETA chairman stressed the need to adopt a multi-pronged approach of mechanisation and setting up a Human Resource Development (HRD) institute. “The changing lifestyle and modern living standards require an overhaul of the traditional management styles of this vital industry. Hence, the Assam tea industry needs a skills development and training institute for the grass-root worker and the managerial level executives to meet the challenges in these aspects and move forward with systematic analysis and formulation of strategies for sustained development,” he added. The NETA also urged the Assam government to declare tea as the “State Drink of Assam” and also to persuade the Centre to declare tea as the National Drink of India. Tea is the National Drink of Britain and China. The Assam tea industry employs about 5 lakh permanent workers and 5 lakh seasonal workers. Another 10 lakh people are dependent on the industry, be it employment or services. Assam produces more than 51 per cent of India's tea and contributes 13 per cent of global tea production. The total turnover of Assam tea industry is 5,000 crore. After the annexation of Assam from Burma (Myanmar), the British colonial administration started tea plantations on a large scale in the region. The first tea committee was formed in 1834, and the first tea garden was established in 1837. By 1900, there were 804 tea gardens. The industry soon began facing a shortage of labourers. With the native people of Assam engaged in independent farming, a labour class seeking wage employment on a regular basis was not available locally. It, therefore, became imperative for the planters to import labourers from outside the State. The Tea Districts Labour Association, constituted under the Tea District Emigrant Labour Act, 1932, started recruiting labour from six labour-surplus provinces — Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, Central Provinces, United Provinces and Madras. The first batch of tea garden labourers were recruited from the Chotanagpur division of Bihar by the Assam Company in 1841. The industry continued to import labourers until 1960.

Assam need to protect Assam Tea

Assam needs to protect Assam tea the same way Cornwall protects its pasties and Parma it's ham. From The Assam Tribune Online, by a staff reporter State lacks awareness on GI Registry Staff Reporter GUWAHATI, July 28 – NE region has the highest number of potential geographical indication (GI) items like handicraft, agricultural and forest products, mineral, etc. But the fact remains that the region is yet to file a significant number of applications with the GI Registry of the country to get its right over these items protected. This is the observation made by Deputy Registrar of Trade Marks and Geographical Indications of the country GL Verma. The Deputy Registrar is in the city on the eve of a one-day seminar-cum-workshop on authorised users of geographical indications. The function is organized by the Geographical Indications Registry of the Union Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion. The GI Registry has defined the geographical indications of goods “as that aspect of industrial property which refers to the geographical indication referring to a country or to a place situated therein as being the country or place of origin of that product…” India, as a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO), enacted the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration & Protection) Act, 1999, which came into force with effect from September 15, 2003. Verma said that Karnataka has filed maximum number of applications and got nine of its items registered with the GI Registry and other three items of this South Indian State are under process of being registered. It needs mention here that Assam has got two of its items – muga silk and Assam tea – registered with the GI Registry. But awareness on the need to register the users with the GI Registry is seemed to be absent in the State, particularly in matters of muga silk. India has, according to a survey, over 3,000 potential GIs, which need to be protected. Till now, only 238 applications have been filed before the authorities for the purpose of registering equal number of items, and, of them, 153 have so far been registered, said Verma. Applications for registering the potential GIs should be filed with the GI authorities and the GI authorities have already furnished the details of the applications in their website: ipindia.nic.in On the ownership of the GI items, the Deputy Registrar said that all such items belong to the community and people of particular localities concerned. Some authorities like the State Government, associations like the producers’ guilds, with support from the universities and govt organisations, may come forward for getting such items registered with the GI Registry. The GI Act, 199 of the country aims at registering and providing a legal framework to protect geographical indications of the country, groups and localities, which have special characteristics and quality products.