To Make Tea, Add Water

At 92, Sagar Datt Mehta has probably seen everything life can throw at him. But even a veteran like him doesn’t remember facing the kind of prolonged drought that has dealt a debilitating blow to the Assam tea industry. And that too in the midst of a crippling pandemic. “It is really bad…very, very bad,” says Mehta, president of Badulipar Ltd, which owns the Koomtai Tea Estate in Golaghat district. Mehta is probably the world’s longest-serving executive in the industry, having come in contact with the tea bushes for the first time in 1954 in Assam. “We have badly fallen behind,” he adds.

From the plains of Assam to the hills of Darjeeling, the long drought has drained the tea industry in India’s east, resulting in the loss of the ‘first flush’, the season’s first crop. This year’s shock comes on the back of last year’s when the Covid lockdown had forced closure of gardens in the ­region that produces the bulk of India’s tea output.

Prabhat Kamal Bezboruah, chairman of Tea Board of India, says that from January to May, Assam lost 40 per cent crop compared to 2019. “We are not comparing with 2020 because that was an unusual year with the ­pandemic-induced lockdown,” he tells Outlook. In certain areas, the loss has been even higher, with Golaghat ­district, a prime tea-growing area, likely to end up recording up to 60 per cent loss, he adds. Neighbouring Jorhat district could be down by over 50 per cent. “But overall, we are looking at a 40 per cent crop loss,” he says.

In 2019, the loss of revenue for Assam’s tea industry during the January-May period was pegged at Rs 1,200 crore.  One hope is that it has started raining and the June-November crop would be better. “But there is no question of making up for what we have already lost,” says Bezboruah.  The Tea Board will close down plucking in December as per the norm, thus ­bringing the curtains down on the year. There’s a bright spot though, in that the price has not reacted, he adds.

In Darjeeling, on the other hand, the loss is estimated at about 48 per cent in March-April over the corresponding period last year due to inadequate rainfall. “We started with a drought or very little rainfall in February-March and thus lost the first flush,” Sandeep Mukherjee, principal advisor to Darjeeling Tea Association, tells Outlook. “The leaves could not just sprout with rainfall playing truant,” he says. Last year, the lockdown had ­coincided with the first flush season, but the saving grace was that at least there was adequate rainfall so the bushes could bear the leaves. “So, once we were permitted to pluck, we went in for it,” he adds.

According to him, the average annual rainfall in the region has dropped by 22 per cent in the past two decades. Earlier, rainfall would be spread out throughout the year, but nowadays it has become erratic. At times, these days, the drought can be so severe that tea bushes even catch fire. “There may be less rainfall when we require and more when we don’t. Besides, for the past four-five years there has been hardly any summer. The winter stretches on till March-April and after a few days of sunshine we jump to monsoon,” says Mukherjee.

The average sunshine hours have also dropped, which hampers production. “Sunshine is very important for the photosynthesis in the leaves, ­without which production of the crop is greatly impacted,” he adds.

Unlike the plains of Assam, Darjeeling hills are handicapped by the absence of ground water, which rules out tube wells and also water bodies or rivers to allow for irrigation. There are 87 ­gardens whose produce only can get the renowned ‘Darjeeling tea’ tag.

The presence of water bodies and ­rivers with irrigation potential, ­however, hasn’t helped Assam much this year with a 45 per cent deficient rainfall between January and April over the corresponding period last year in the main tea-growing districts from  Golaghat to Tinsukia.  

“We haven’t had such a drought in the past 30 years,” says Bidyananda Barkakoty, Adviser, North Eastern Tea Association, and also a former vice chairman of Tea Board of India. “The first flush is gone,” he adds, hoping that with rain looking to set in the second flush, which fetches premium price, would be good and provide some succour to the industry. The second flush is harvested in June, but it could be delayed because application of fertiliser has been pushed back by about two months due to lack of rain. “The soil needs moisture to absorb the fertiliser and we have just about started, so we are not certain whether we can harvest in June,” he says.

Besides, extreme weather fluctuations both in terms of temperature and rainfall also prevented the leaves from sprouting.  “Temperature drop from 34 to 19 degrees centigrade ­coupled with hardly any sunshine and preceded by temperatures above 34 degree centigrade is playing havoc with the crop,” says Mrigendra Jalan, Adviser, Bharatiya Cha Parishad.

In Assam, it has been actually a double whammy for the industry with the coronavirus entering the gardens with a gusto after not finding its way last year when the pandemic raged. “This time it is playing havoc,” says an ­official of a garden in eastern Assam hit hard by the virus. From the bungalows of the ‘sahibs’ to the labour lines with squalid living conditions in the quarters, its passage has been unhindered.

For the record, till around mid-May, there have been 12 deaths, while 1,851 persons have tested positive in 229 ­gardens of the state with its about 800 registered gardens. This, however, has not hampered work. “May be in a few smaller gardens, but Covid has not ­affected operations,” Barkakoty says. For instance, if there are three labour lines in a garden, one may have been declared a containment zone, but those living in the other two were free to work following the prescribed SOPs, he adds.

Mehta, meanwhile, nurses hope as he does his evening drink, looking at the gathering clouds promising rain. “I hope everything will be alright at the end,” he says. In his long innings, he would have seen many a turn-around. 

By Dipankar Roy in Guwahati