C T Online Desk: 21 plantation owners of Chittagong have suffered a loss of more than 22 crore taka due to not picking tea leaves in time. Due to the intervention of the Prime Minister, the daily wage was fixed at Tk 170, after a 15-day strike, about 16 thousand workers joined the work here.
Currently green tea leaves have started to be collected but the supply has decreased as the grown leaves are unfit for processing. As a result, the price of loose and packaged tea leaves has started to increase in the wholesale and retail markets. About 4 lakh kg of tea leaves are collected daily from 21 gardens in Chattogram .
Garden owners say that about 45 lakh kg of green tea leaves could not be collected due to labor strike. About 11 lakh kg of tea leaves were obtained by processing these leaves.
Out of the 21 tea gardens in Chittagong, 17 are located in Phatikchari. Utpal Biswas, manager of Rangapani tea garden in the upazila, said that an average of 15,000 kg of green tea leaves are collected from Rangapani tea garden every day. About 1 lakh 65 thousand kg of leaves could not be collected from this garden in 11 days due to the agitation of tea workers. The leaves were too big to be processed. Tea production this season may be 15 to 20 percent less than the target.
Kazi Irfan Ullah, General Manager of Neptune Tea Garden in Phatikchari, said that August, September and October are the full season of tea production. This year also there was a possibility of meeting the target in Chittagong. But because the leaves are not collected in time, one has to wait for new buds to grow. Due to the strike, the government has also lost about Tk. 35 crores in revenue.
Meanwhile, the price of tea in the market increased from Tk 20 to Tk 40 per kg within a week. The average price of tea per kg in the last 15th and 16th auctions was Tk 220. 23 lakh 19 thousand 801 kg in 46 thousand 489 packages (50 kg per package) are offered for sale in the 17th auction on Monday (August 29). Naturally, the supply of tea at the auction is decreasing. More than 95 percent of the country’s tea is sold in the Chittagong auction.
Mohammad Yusuf, former president of Bangladesh Tea Traders Association, said that production has been disrupted due to the workers’ strike. If supply decreases, demand will affect prices.
Former Chairman of Bangladeshi Tea Sangsad Chittagong region. Jahangir Alam said that the tea season is from April to December. As the desired tea leaves are not picked in August, it will be difficult to recover this loss. An increase in auction prices will naturally increase prices in the retail and wholesale markets he added.
