Tea garden workers in the three southern Indian states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka are threatening to strike for three or four days if irregular payment of wages continues.

And they will find coffee, rubber and cardamom plantation workers making common cause with them - as happened when they stayed away from work on Monday.

All the trade unions, irrespective of political affiliation, have been lending support to the workers.

In each of the three states, the unions have formed an action committee to direct the workers' movement. Many gardens are not able to provide for the workers' provident fund and other statutory dues.

"Interestingly, the ire of workers is not directed against plantation owners. They know that the very low tea prices caused by poor domestic and export demand, and imports mainly from Sri Lanka have brought the owners to their knees. A consensus is there among the unions that the federal government's intervention is needed to end the industry's crisis," said an official of the United Planters' Association of Southern India.

The action by more than 1m plantation workers, including some 400,000 in tea gardens alone, is proving to be a big help to the tea industry, which is putting pressure on the government to increase the customs duty on tea from 35 per cent to closer to the bound rate of 150 per cent. But even the duty revision demanded by the industry will not stop imports from Sri Lanka.

"Under a special agreement between the two countries, India allows the import of up to 15m kg of Sri Lankan tea a year at a concessional duty of 7.5 per cent. The agreement, however, calls for a review in view of the crisis in south Indian gardens," said an official of the Indian Tea Association.

South India accounts for nearly 25 per cent of the country's annual tea production of more than 800m kg. Unlike in the eastern states of Assam and West Bengal, small tea gardens abound in south India and many of these will have to stop production in the next couple of months as losses mount.

According to analysts, discouraging imports by way of a duty rise alone will not bail out the south Indian gardens, whose cost of production is higher than the prices they get for their teas.

"The industry in the south will have to bring about considerable improvement in the quality of tea it makes to be able to find a market outside the southern states. Since the gardens there are traditionally producing large quantities of teas first for eastern Europe and then for Russia, any setback in exports to that destination leaves the industry high and dry. There is hardly any market for that kind of tea in any other country," said an industry official.

But improving the quality will take a fairly long campaign and it calls for some investment. Unfortunately, the small southern owners - according to latest figures, nearly 32,000 owners have holdings of eight hectares and less - do not have the resources to invest in their properties.

Financial Times FT.com (14/12/2000)

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