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Thumbs-up to tea

Govt okays Tk 4.92cr project to up output

STAR BUSINESS REPORT
In a bid to expand export market and meet growing domestic demand, the government yesterday okayed a Tk 4.92 crore project on 'small holding tea cultivation' in Chittagong hill tracts.
Under the five-year project, around 300 acres of land at Rangamati, Khagrachhari and Bandarban districts will be brought under tea cultivation. Bangladesh Tea Board (BTB) will implement the project.
Besides, a tea research institute will be established in Rangamati for helping small growers in the hill districts. The projects will also help in bringing lands that remain fallow and are less productive in terms of economic return.
Commerce Minister Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury chaired a meeting in Dhaka, which approved
the project. Members of the departmental project evaluation committee (DPEC) attended the meeting.
Under the project to be ended in June 2008, small growers in the three hill districts will be provided with quality saplings, fertiliser and sprayers. Planting of tea saplings will begin from next month.
The growers will be given Tk 45 lakh in subsidy and Tk 2.91 crore in loans at five per cent interest rate.
"Domestic tea consumption is on rise. Implementing such projects will not only help in meeting growing demand at home but also increase our exports," the commerce minister told reporters after the meeting.
The project will involve small growers in tea cultivation. Besides, it will help rural women increase their income, he added.
"In fact, it is part of a mega project that aims at doubling tea production by 2023 and bring about
49,000 hectares of land under tea cultivation," said a high official of BTB who attended the meeting.
The BTB already implemented a small grower concept (SGC) project in Panchagarh district in 2001.
"Domestic consumption is going up by 3.5 per cent annually against nearly one per cent rise in production," SAHM Tauhid, chairman of BTB, told The Daily Star.
He apprehended that Bangladesh, now the world's fifth largest tea exporter, may become a tea importing country by 2015, if production could not be increased.
Bangladesh produces about 55 million kg of tea a year on 119,000 hectares (297,500 acres) of land mainly in Sylhet region. It exported 13.7 million kg of tea in 2002, compared to 27.2 million kg in 1992.