Tea holds high hopes in hills

Tea seedlings being raised in a nursery of Bangladesh Tea Board in Bandarban (left) and a plant in a garden. PHOTO: STAR

Mong hopes the fertile barren lands left uncared for decades will now be properly utilised and bring fortune for the hill people.

Tea plantation will generate activities and create jobs in different fields, he told this correspondent during a recent visit to his garden. He said he has already engaged about a dozen workers to nurse the tender plants as per advice of experts of Bangladesh Tea Board (BTB) and Bangladesh Tea Research Institute (BTRI). Some BTRI experts from Srimolgol in Sylhet are now in Banadarban to assist tea planters.

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Mong visualises a scene when scrubs in the hills will be replaced with lush green tea gardens, opening up great prospects also for the country.

The government is giving financial and technical assistance for raising tea gardens in Bandarban as part of a plan for the whole of Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT).

But AKM Jahangir did not wait for government's financial assistance.

"I planted tea saplings on may own", he said at his garden in Chemi in the Sadar upazila.

"I think there is a bright future for tea plantation in the area", he said.

"There are lot of hassles in getting loan. So I started without taking any loan. Tea experts are assisting me", he said. Some other investors have also become interested to raise tea gardens, he said.

Mong and Jahangir are among some enthusiastic people in Bandarban who are raising gardens under a government plan to promote small private tea holdings in the CHT.

About 175 hectares of land have been brought under tea plantation in Shualok, Dolupara, Majherpara, Goaliakhola and Chemi areas in the Sadar upazila in the current monsoon.

The programme began this year. So far, 35 landowners have planted tea saplings on each of their five-hectare holdings, BTB sources said. A total of 550 hectares will be brought under tea plantation in Bandarban this year, they said.

Tea plucking is expected after four years.

About 70 per cent of owners of the holdings are indigenous people and the rest are Bangalees, they said.

BTB undertook the venture after a survey in 2000 which found that soil, average rainfall and weather in CHT is suitable for tea plantation.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has provided financial support for the project. BTB is giving technical support while Bangladesh Krishi Bank (BKB) is supervising the loan programme.

A loan of Tk 1.26 lakh is given per hectare. The loan will be disbursed in five installments. Besides, Tk 15,000 is given to cultivators as grant to buy tea seedlings and 'cuttings'.

The BTB has so far distributed two lakh 'cuttings' and 10,000 seedlings among tea planters.

They said the survey revealed that 46850 hectares of land in CHT are suitable for tea cultivation. All these lands will be brought under tea plantation in phases, they added.

In the first phase, 6332 hectares in four upazilas in Khagrachari, 3475 in three upazilas in Bandarban and 1250 hectares in three upazilas in Rangamati will be brought under tea cultivation in four years, they said.

Bangladesh is now exporting only about one percent of the total demand for tea in the world market. The percentage may be increased to 5 to 6 percent if tea can be cultivated in CHT, they hoped.

Meanwhile, tea cultivators in Bandarban have formed an organisation styled Bandarban Tea Estate Owners Association led by Prof Md Osman Ghani as its president.

Talking to this correspondent, he said though tea plantation was inaugurated in Bandarban in 2003, nothing fruitful came forth. It was done just to make the people aware that tea can be cultivated here.

But now, with the government providing financial and technical assistance, many landowners are preparing their lands for this. Many of them have collected saplings and cuttings from nurseries of BTB and Tea Research Institute, and even from different tea estates in Sylhet, he said. This sector has a bright prospect in the CHT districts because many investors are coming forward, he said.

In 2003, the then commerce minister Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury had inaugurated tea plantation at a garden in Bandarban.