GUWAHATI, May 15 � A tussle seems to be in the offing on the issue of appointment of the next chairman of the Tea Board of India, the 56-year-old autonomous statutory body, which regulates the country's tea industry. This time, the united force of the south Indian tea producing states has entered the arena to wrest this post from Assam.
Tea industry sources here said that as per convention, the post should have been reserved for Assam this time, after the retirement of the present Chairman of the Board, who is an IAS officer of the West Bengal cadre. The present Chairman of the Board is retiring in October this year.
The alleged indolence of the Assam Government to take up the issue promptly with the Union Commerce and Industry Ministry, under which the Board is placed, has encouraged a powerful south Indian lobby to explicitly campaign for appointing an IAS officer from any of the south Indian states' cadres against the post.
The situation has come to such a stage that if not handled with due urgency and acumen, Assam may lose the post this time to south India. It will have to wait for the next five years for another chance to get one of the IAS officers of Assam cadre appointed as the head of this tea industry regulatory authority.
The convention of rotational appointment of Assam and West Bengal cadre IAS officers is about 20 years old. The post of chairman of the Tea Board is equivalent to that of a Joint Secretary of the Government of India (GoI).
Assam has a share of over 50 per cent in the country's total tea production. In 2009, it had a contribution of 51 per cent to the country's total tea output, while West Bengal made a contribution of 22.6 per cent that year, against the contribution of 25 per cent made by the south Indian states jointly. The other tea growing north Indian states produced the remaining 1.4 per cent of tea that year.
The Tea Board has wide functions and responsibilities as an agency of the Central Government. The primary functions are to render financial and technical assistance for cultivation, manufacturing and marketing of tea, promoting export, facilitating research and development activities for augmentation of tea production and improvement of tea quality.
Besides, it extends financial assistance in a limited way to the plantation workers and their wards through labour welfare schemes. It also encourages and assists both financially and technically, the unorganised small growers and collects and maintains statistical data for publishing them.
Moreover, it regulates issuance of exporter's licence, tea waste licence, tea warehousing licence, etc.
On April 29, 2002, an all-party delegation of the Assam Assembly met the then Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Murasoli Moran and pleaded for steps to shift headquarters of tea companies from Kolkata to Assam as well as steps for shifting Tea Board from Kolkata to Guwahati. The Assam Legislative Assembly had passed an unanimous resolution in this regard on April 2, 2002.
The all-party delegation comprising 17 members was led by the then Speaker of Assam Assembly Prithivi Majhi.
