The management of the Travancore Rubber and Tea Estate at Ambanad has asked the State government to intervene in the plantation sector crisis by procuring at least the tea produced by factories in the State at the rate of Rs.135 a kg and make arrangements to sell the product through the public distribution system at the rate of Rs.225 a kg.
In a statement here on Monday the senior manager of the estate N. Anil Krishna Maharaj said even that rate would be much less compared to the price for tea paid by consumers in the open market. He said that effective government intervention was necessary to save the sinking plantation sector of the State. The ‘illegal’ plantation sector strike had worsened the situation.
‘Change laws’
Mr. Maharaj said an overhauling of the labour laws and attitude of the political parties towards the managements of the plantation sector was needed. “The existing labour laws are outdated and need to be amended to suit the needs of the time.”
He said plantations, one of the biggest employers in the State, were made to pull on under heavy pressure. The militant attitude of the trade unions was one of the biggest threats. He said that though tea and rubber came under the agricultural sector, and paid agricultural income tax, the KSEB had slapped industrial tariff rates on the plantations. The plantation sector was passing through a loss-making phase. Climbing cost of production and low prices at auction centres had affected the tea industry. The trade unions and the workers were turning a blind eye to the realities when it came to profitability of the contemporary plantation sector, Mr. Maharaj said.
Production in the sector was totally dependent on climatic factors. Mr. Maharaj said that on quality grounds, north Indian tea got a higher price that tea from the south. At the same time, wages and cost of production in the north were much lower than those in the south. This made tea produced in Kerala highly uncompetitive.
