Budget 2024: Assam tea industry look forward to exports promotion policy

Nalin Khemani, the Chairman of Bharatiya Chai Parishad, just ahead of the interim budget 2024 has asked for the proper promotion of the ailing tea industry in Assam, especially overseas, so that it can help tapping new markets.

While speaking to ANI, Khemani said, "The commerce ministry must ensure that our exports improve; they promote our tea. There is an oversupply in our domestic market, and the export demand is tepid. If the government takes up with the Tea Board to introduce a tea promotion policy, we can tap new overseas markets."

#WATCH | Dibrugarh, Assam: On Tea Industry expectations from interim Union Budget 2024, Chairman of Bharatiya Chai Parishad, Nalin Khemani says, "Subsidies cannot help an industry if it wants to be self-sustainable... If the govt. could take over our burden of social costs like… pic.twitter.com/q5kd5IBjUY

— ANI (@ANI) January 29, 2024

He spoke to ANI from Dibrugarh, one of the main tea centres in the upper Assamese growing regions, explaining that poor sales realisation had kept tea prices relatively stable since the Covid pandemic.
The Bharatiya Chai Parishad has asked the state government to lessen the industry's entire social cost burden, a request that is addressed to Assam, which will also present its budget for 2024–25 next month.

"The industry is in stress. For any industry to be sustainable, there has to be a self-sustainable model. Subsidies can't help the industry. If the government can take over our social cost burden, it will help the industry. When the Assam tea industry came to being 200 years ago, the tea estate management used to set up infrastructure-- schools and hospitals. Now the government is doing a commendable job, and they should now take over the garden hospitals, which will reduce our social cost burden," Khemani added.

It is worth to be noted that India with the 11% of the share, is the fourth-largest tea exporter after China, Kenya and Sri Lanka.

Union Budget 2024

The final sitting of Parliament before the anticipated April–May general elections is the Budget session, which is scheduled to start on January 31 and run until February 9, according to sources.

On February 1, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will deliver the interim budget. President Droupadi Murmu's speech to the joint session of the two Houses of Parliament will kick off the session.

Usually, the interim budget meets the financial obligations of the transitional period until a government is established following the Lok Sabha elections.