Tripura Cha Mazdoor Sangha oppose Palm, betel leaf and lemon cultivation on tea garden land, threaten agitation

By Our Correspondent

Agartala, December 28, 2025

The BMS-affiliated Tripura Cha Mazdoor (tea workers) Sangh has strongly opposed the move to utilise the tea garden land for cultivation of Palm oil, betel nut and lemon and other items . Speaking in an interaction with the media the ‘Sangh’ made its stand clear and threatened to launch an agitational programme against the latest trend among tea garden owners.

In an interaction with the media in Agartala Press Club yesterday the state secretary of the Tripura Cha Mazdoor Sangh , Tapan Kumar De said that a section of tea garden owners have recently taken an initiative to launch cultivation of Palm oil, betel nut, lemon etc on surplus land of the gardens for earning extra profit. “This will destroy the more than a century old tradition of Tripura’s tea industry which commenced in the year 1916; it is well known that cultivation of Palm oil corrodes the top soil of the earth by consuming disproportionate quantity of water while betel nut and lemon cultivation can not be a substitute for tea cultivation” he said . He cited specific scientific data to clam that Palm oil cultivation adversely tells upon soil and pushes down the water level further underground and like rubber it also casts a baneful impact on the environment, besides adversely affecting the fertility of land. “Now the tea produced in Tripura has carved a niche for itself not only in India but at the international level ;hence nothing should be done to spoil this industry” said Tapan De.

He asserted that conversion of tea gardens into spheres of composite farming may lead to retrenchment of workers who survive by working in the tea gardens and this will have an adverse impact on the state’s economy also. The president of the ‘Sangha’ Haripada Naike also warned the tea garden owners not to fall for composite farming by encouraging cultivation of other cash crops or else there will be a militant agitation against the step. He particularly opposed the cultivation of environmentally harmful Palm oil in the tea gardens of Tripura. There are altogether 57 tea gardens in the state out of which 54 are operational at the present and Tripura tea sells well in auctions and is also exported.

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