Ooty: The ‘small tea growers (STG)’ here in the hills have urged that the tea subsidy announced by the Chief minister Edappadi K.PalaniswamI be extended to all the STG families who supply green tea leaf (GTL) to private tea factories, as the present order on subsidy is confined only to those STG who are attached to cooperative tea factories.
Stating that the announcement made by the Chief Minister during the MGR birth centenary celebration held at Ooty on Saturday on providing Rs 2 as subsidy per kilogram of GTL “is really a timely and a welcome one”, Mr. Thumboor I.Bhojan, president of the Hill
District Small Growers Welfare Association (HDSGWA), said that this subsidy for tea was only limited to those STG who are members of various cooperative tea factories spread across the Nilgiris. That means only around 22,000 STG families are entitled to avail this subsidy.
He further stated that there around 60,000 STG families in Nilgiris, and, many of them are regular suppliers of their GTL to around one hundred private ‘bought tea leaf’ factories in the district. So, when a subsidy for tea is announced that too for STG categeory, it should reach all the STG families and it should not be confined only those who supply GTL to cooperative tea factories alone, he noted.
