Stakeholders are sounding alarms about a crisis in Nepal’s tea industry, the second-largest foreign currency earner after cardamom. Concerns arise amid the National Tea and Coffee Development Board’s ambition to double foreign currency earnings in the current fiscal year compared to the previous one. Tea farmer Harka Tamang pointed out that the government’s classification of tea as an industry rather than an agricultural product results in higher electricity tariffs, impacting irrigation. Additionally, the absence of an auction market hinders access to the global market.
Bhupal Sapkota, Central Vice President of All Nepal Trade Union, blames the NTCDB for not effectively addressing issues faced by tea industrialists, businessmen, farmers, and workers. Deepak Tamang, Central President of the Nepal Tea Plantation Workers’ Union, criticized the government’s indifference toward the tea sector, highlighting the board’s failure to enforce laws while some plantation workers aren’t receiving wages as stipulated by the Labour Act. Meanwhile, Bishnu Prasad Bhattarai, the Board’s Executive Director, has pledged to actively resolve the tea sector’s challenges and address stakeholders’ concerns.
The Board’s statistics reveal that Nepal earned Rs 3.80 billion through tea exports in the last fiscal year. Nepali tea primarily targets markets in India, China, Sri Lanka, Russia, and the Netherlands. The country boasts 20,237 hectares of tea plantations, with 99 percent located in the Koshi province. These plantations, along with 30 orthodox tea industries and 38 CTC tea industries, collectively employ 70,000 individuals.
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