Interestingly, the team has also suggested to the government to provide additional facilities to the tea factories.
The led by Vijoy Kumar Mallick, joint-secretary at the Ministry of Agricultural Development, submitted its report to the Minister for Agricultural Development Tek Bahadur Thapa Gharti on Sunday. [break]
The eight-member team included Udaya Chapagain, chairman of Himalayan Orthodox Tea Producers Association Nepal and Chhatra Giri, coordinator of Tea Producers´ Association.
The team has suggested waiver of different taxes to the tea factories. It has also suggested to the government to arrange feeder lines to tea estates in Ilam and Jhapa.
There are over four dozen tea estates in those districts.
The team has estimated the cost of arranging feeder lines to those estates at Rs 440 million.
The tea industrialists had submitted eight-point demand to the Chairman of Interim Election Council Khil Raj Regmi in August. Later, Minister for Finance Shankar Prasad Koirala had formed the team to study the demands placed by tea industrialists.
In their demand, the tea entrepreneurs had argued that Nepali tea would be able to compete with Indian tea only if their demands were addressed. Around 95 percent of tea produced in Nepal is exported to India.
Initially, the government had asked the team to study on three demands placed by the tea entrepreneurs - uninterrupted electricity at tea factories, relaxation in bank interest rates and customs duty waiver on purchase of truck or pick-up van for transportation of green tea and processed tea.
However, Chapagain and Giri declined to sit in the meeting until the government expressed commitment to address all their demands. Later, the government asked the team to study all the demand of the tea entrepreneurs. It also added two representatives from the Ministry of Energy into the team.
The team then finalized its report within 10 days.
Some members of the team have expressed surprise on why there were included in the team if the team had to write whatever the tea entrepreneurs say.
When Republic questioned Mallick why the report was prepared without duly studying the demands placed by the tea entrepreneurs, he simply said tea factories are in big trouble and that they need to be protected.
Receiving the report, Minister Gharti said he would forward the report to the cabinet for final approval after holding discussion with the officials of the finance ministry.
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