A New Hope for the Hills of Darjeeling - By: Vishal Sh

Last week in Darjeeling, India comes new hope for the tea hills and estates. This was brought about by the latest decision to move the Hill Tea Gardens and Cinchona Plantations to be under the Gorkhaland Territorial Authority (GTA). This brings new optimism for the Darjeeling tea business, because this is seen as the means to solve the long-time problems in the tea industry.
Sanjay Bansal, chairperson of the Darjeeling Tea Association said “This is the first time that the Tauzin department has been transferred to a local body. We hope the leases of around 30 gardens, which were not renewed, can now be sorted out.”The Tauzin department will no longer be in charge of the Darjeeling tea garden’s land records and rent collection, instead it will be under the new management of GTA.

The problem with the uncollected rentals from the odd numbered gardens started in the 1990’s, which was a result of the large amount being asked from the owners. They were unwilling to pay the one time rent of Rs 15,000 per hectare for a period of 30 years.

Bansal said, “We are paying a rent of Rs 44 per acre per annum (2.5 acres make a hectare) to the Tauzin department, but because of the salami problem many gardens do not have the lease documents though they have the land rent receipts.”

Darjeeling tea garden owners are hopeful that they will be able to keep at least 10 hectares of their land, other than that provided by the tea tourism industry. This is as the management of the tea estates are handled by GTA. Bansal who stands as the spokesperson said “There was a disconnect among the different departments, and the most important clearance needed to come from the land and land reforms (department). We now hope that this issue, too, will be solved.”

Many will benefit from this current development especially the Darjeeling tea estates that are comprised of 80 gardens with at least 50,000 regular employees; while the Chincona plantation is composed of 26,000 hectares that are cultivated by more than 40,000 employees.

An official of the Chincona plantation said “We have large swathes of vacant land within the plantation and there is huge potential for development. We are excited that projects will be drawn up keeping these things in mind.”This proves that people from Chincona are also hopeful of the current transfer, which also planned to have the processing unit for them to be set up at Mungpoo in Kurseong.

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