Land Resource Utilisation in Tea Industry: Current Problems and Future Prospects with Special Reference to Labour

Central focus of this study is to analyse two very important issues: land utilization patterns in tea gardens and the socio-economic profile of tea garden labour. In India there are presently an estimated thirteen hundred tea factories and thirty seven thousand large and small estates with more than two million people earning their livelihood from tea related activities. These mainly include production, value addition at different levels, marketing of tea and related activities. In the tea industry, it is well known that despite such overwhelming dependence on tea related activities, the country is perhaps operating much below its capacity. In this regard, we observed that vast areas located under the big tea estates are not under tea plantation. Proper use of unutilised resource may generate higher returns to capital and land along with higher employment levels. However, the question remains as to what level of production and employment should be deemed optimal in tea plantations. This study strives to look at some of these aspects with the help of detailed survey based data from West Bengal, Assam and Tamil Nadu. Based on this extensive sample survey on tea gardens in all these major tea producing regions the study pragmatically examines the labour market issues too.