The tea growers of Panchagarh and Tentulia demanded setting up an auction centre to ensure fair prices necessitated for faster expansion of the tea industry in the northern region of the country. Growers recently staged a demonstration at Sher-e-Bangla intersection of the Dhaka-Panchagarh Highway and demanded fair price for raw tea leaves in the harvesting season. They alleged that the slow pace of setting up the auction centre has left growers of the area totally frustrated. The establishment of a new auction centre would greatly reduce the transport cost for farmers. They demanded government intervention in setting up a state-owned tea factory to ensure fair prices for tea growers.
Tea production in the northern region started in March with a target of producing 18 million kgs of processed tea this year. Last year, a record 14.5 million kgs of tea were produced in the northern plain lands, making it the second largest tea-producing region in the country after Sylhet. Professional growers can pluck between tea leaves for 32 to 34-day rounds each season. But in Panchagarh, growers usually pluck in just 6 to 8-day rounds in a season. Allegedly, the tea growers are being deprived of fair prices as a syndicate of tea factory owners has been intentionally dropping the purchasing price of tea leaves during peak harvesting season for the last three years. They threatened to launch tougher movements if their demand for setting up a new auction centre is not met immediately.
Presently, there are 22 tea factories in operation in the country’s northern region. Of them, 20 are in Panchagarh and one each in Thakurgaon and Lalmonirhat. The growers alleged that on various pretexts factory owners have started curtailing 15 per cent to 40 per cent of the total weight of the tea leaves being supplied by farmers as such they get less than Tk 10 per kg for their tea leaves, much less than the production cost. Bangladesh Tea Board data shows, last year around 72.46 million kgs of tea was produced in the Sylhet region, 14.54 million kgs in the northern region and 9.5 million kgs in Chattogram region.
Tea industry is flourishing in the northern region, especially in Panchagarh and Thakurgaon. The industry will expand even faster if the government takes the initiative to set up a state-owned tea factory and more auction centres in Panchagarh.
