The Centre has proposed to repeal the Tea Act of 1953 and the Coffee Act of 1942. The Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi has decided to dump the decades-old legislation that has governed major cash crops like tea and coffee and introduce new legislation designed to reconstitute the relevant Boards that will henceforth act as “facilitators” for the benefit of the industry.
A notice put up on the Tea Board on its website said, “After more than 68 years, some of the existing provisions of the Tea Act, 1953 have become redundant by efflux of time for which it has been proposed to bring a new Act in place of the present Act under which Tea Board will act as a facilitator for the benefit of tea industry.”
It added that the new legislation to be called the Tea (Promotion and Development) Act, 2022 — proposes to delete those archaic provisions which have become irrelevant in today’s context and introduce new objectives so that the Board can act as a facilitator to optimize the development, promotion and research in tea industry and help in improving production, export, quality of Indian tea.
Under the new Act, the Tea Board will be renamed as the Tea Promotion and Development Board. Its remit is also being expanded to cover nine objectives and also seek to promote sale and consumption of tea including through e-commerce platforms. The Boards will be run by chief executive officers who will be aided by a chief financial officer.
Sources said the Centre may carry out similar changes in other commodity boards such as coffee, rubber, spice shortly. These commodity specific boards, with strong regional presence and connection, report to the Union ministry of commerce. The tea industry is hoping that the new Board will actively take up promotion of the beverage in India and abroad, re-build the Indian tea brand, rejuvenate stagnant exports and increase domestic consumption.
