Give Assam tea industry a special revival package, Congress tells PM

GUWAHATI

The Assam Congress has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to provide a special package for the revival of Assam’s tea industry, caught in a crisis due to climate change-induced production losses and the drastic fall in green leaf prices.

In a letter to the Prime Minister on Thursday (September 18, 2025), Congress Legislature Party leader Debabrata Saikia also reminded him of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) unfulfilled poll promise to increase the wages of tea plantation workers and grant them the Scheduled Tribe (ST) status.

Mr Saikia said the Prime Minister had visited Assam twice in eight months in 2025 and announced projects worth more than ₹19,000 crore while highlighting his association as a ‘chaiwallah’. About 35 lakh people dependent on the tea industry had also expected a comprehensive rejuvenation package, but were left disappointed, he said.

Climate change impact

“The tea industry in Assam, which contributes 55% of India’s total tea production, is experiencing a catastrophic decline with production falling by 7.8%. This sector, providing direct employment to over 1 million workers, is facing severe economic distress as tea leaf prices have collapsed from ₹52 per kg to ₹15 per kg, significantly below the production cost of ₹25-27 per kg,” he wrote.

Mr Saikia said tea planters and producers have been hit hard by climate-related vulnerabilities, such as irregular rainfall and an increase in temperatures in crucial tea-growing regions such as eastern Assam’s Jorhat to 40-41°C, exceeding the optimal 27°C required for quality tea cultivation. “These alarming statistics underscore the urgent need for comprehensive intervention to prevent the complete collapse of this vital industry,” he said.

Wage comparison

The Congress leader lamented the Prime Minister’s failure to live up to his 2014 poll promise to raise the wages of Assam’s tea workers to ₹351 per day. “The workers in Assam currently receive ₹220-250 per diem, which is significantly less than the ₹470 per day their counterparts in Kerala, and the ₹480 per day tea workers in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu get,” he said.

He also drew Mr. Modi’s attention to the plight of the six lakh workers in small tea gardens, who remain outside the ambit of basic wage protections. These small tea gardens contribute 40% of overall tea production in Assam.

Mr. Saikia further sought an overhaul of India’s tea auction system, which is “increasingly disadvantaging producers, especially small tea growers and the bought leaf factories, as prices remain volatile, transparency is eroding, and a large proportion of teas are left unsold”.

He pointed out that only 44% (600 million kg) of India’s total annual production of 1,350 million kg of tea is sold through auctions, down from more than 40% two years ago. This is because large buyers prefer private sales, weakening competition and price discovery, he said.

Unsold teas

“Unsold teas have also risen sharply, with Guwahati auctions recording 36% unsold lots in 2025-26, up from 23% the previous financial year, while Kolkata saw an increase from 18% to 26%. At the grassroots level, small tea growers are receiving only ₹13-15 per kg for green tea leaf, while the processing cost is ₹19-20 per kg, pushing growers into distress,” Mr. Saikia said.

He said the challenges faced by the tea industry can be fixed by setting a minimum sustainable price for made tea and green leaf linked to the production cost, making it mandatory to sell a significant proportion of tea through auctions, curbing buyer cartelisation through stricter regulation, and ensuring quicker payment cycles to protect producers’ cash flow.

Mr. Saikia also sought the immediate restoration of the ₹50-crore annual funding to the Tocklai Tea Research Institute to rejuvenate vital research programmes and the allocation of ₹200 crore for a Climate Adaptation Research Mission focused on developing drought-resistant tea varieties.