Tripura, a state with a century-old tea-growing culture once again wants its tea to be auctioned in Bangladesh which was stopped 56 years ago in the aftermath of the 1965 war with Pakistan.
“Tripura has always had a problem of auctioning tea as there is no auction center in the state. Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb has asked the Government of India to take up with Bangladesh so that planters from Tripura can auction their produce at Sreemangal, which is near the Tripura border, Chairman of the Tripura Tea Development Corporation (TTDC) Santosh Saha told PTI.
As per reports by PTI, the Tea owners want to sell their teas through the Sreemangal Tea Auction center in Bangladesh, 10 kilometers away from the state border with Bangladesh.
Currently, Tripura has around 58 tea gardens of which 42 are owned by individuals and others are run by cooperative societies.
Interestingly, Tripura’s gardens were pioneered by Indian tea entrepreneurs as the then ruler of the state, Maharaja Birendra Kishore Manikya, had a policy of not allowing British planters to buy land in his state.
As per the latest reports, 6,885 hectares of land is under tea cultivation in the state, officials said. The northeastern state currently produces over 3.58 crore kg green tea leaf annually.
[Input: PTI]
