Tea Association Seeks Centre’s Support For Adequate Coal Supply To NE

Tea Association of India has briefed the Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal, about the current precarious situation prevalent in the Tea Industry of North East India which covers the states of Assam, West Bengal, Sikkim due to the non-availability of coal and surge in prices of coal.

The Association sought assistance support in making available adequate coal supply to North East India's Tea Estates so that non-availability of coal do not cause disruption in production in the manufacturing of tea.

According to a statement from the Association, the matter was further been taken up by Darjeeling Constituency MP, Raju Bista, who is also a member of Parliamentary Standing Committee – Commerce & Industry, Government of India, with the Minister of Coal & Mines Pralhad Joshi.

North East India constitutes 80% tea production of India. Almost all of the manufacturing process of tea requires the consumption of energy. More or less 79% of tea production of North East India depends on conventional fuel mainly coal. The requirement of coal is 1.125 kgs for making per kg made tea, the release stateḍ.

The Association also noted that the production of coal in Assam has been hampered due to the reported cause of the Forest Department having cancelled lease to the North Eastern Coalfield.

The present requirement of coal in Tea growing areas of North East India is therefore primarily being met from Asansol/ Raiganj coalfield and coal imported from Indonesia. The months of October and November witnessed production of 263-265 M.kgs of the crop in North East India.

Therefore the paucity of coal has caused severe distortion in the market value of available coal to the extent that the cost per Tonne of Coal has shot up from 10000/- per MT to Rs. 19500/ MT, it said.