The Tripura Tea Auction Centre is likely to be made operational within a month, Tripura Tea Development Corporation (TTDC) chairman Samir Ranjan Ghosh said. Chief Minister Manik Saha had laid the foundation stone for the state’s first tea auction center at Gurkhabasti in West Tripura district in March 2024. At present, the country has seven tea auction centers. “We have set a target to operationalise the first tea auction center at Gurkhabasti within a month,” Ghosh said. He said that efforts to set up a tea auction centre in the state has been continuing for a long time and now it is likely to materialize with corresponding benefit to the industry spread over 52 functional tea gardens. He said that the auction center will benefit garden owners as well as buyers from outside. In the absence of an auction center, tea from Tripura has to be sent to Guwahati auction center at a considerable cost and having an auction center here will help tea producers with increase in competitiveness of tea produced in Tripura, said Ghosh.
He said that since the advent of BJP government in Tripura in 2018 the workers have also been benefited considerably with increase in wages, other related benefits and housing. For long 110 years the Tripura tea workers used to draw a daily wage of only Rs 105.00 per day, but this has now been raised to Rs 204.00 per day. Even the wage of minor workers has been increased from Rs 52.50 earlier to Rs 102.00. “In accordance with the Chief Minister Tea Workers Welfare Scheme the tea workers are now availing altogether 22 benefits. There was a time when tea garden owners had to work for the welfare of the workers but since 2018 the government has also stepped in,” said Ghosh. He added that the state government has been providing housing facilities to the tea garden workers by constructing their housing plots under the PM Awas Yojana (PMAY) scheme besides making provision for water supply, electricity and toilet facilities.
