An improvement was noticed in India’s tea production so far this calendar over the same months of 2020.

“Tea Board has now released the data for February which showed that the country produced 17.48 million kg (mkg) against 14.54 in February 2020, marking a gain of 2.94 mkg or 20.22 per cent”, Rajesh Gupta, compiler of ‘Global Tea Digest told BusinessLine .

While South India showed a moderate increase of 15.04 per cent, North India achieved a whopping gain of 75.81 per cent, he said.

“In the two months, India’s cumulative tea output rose to 33.53 mkg from 30.60 mkg in Jan-Feb 2020, marking an increase of 2.93 mkg or 9.58 per cent”, he noted.

The substantial increase happened in North India. “North Indian production rose to 2.18 mkg from 1.28 mkg in January-February 2020, marking a gain of 0.90 mkg or a whopping 70.31 per cent,” Gupta said.

Here again, West Bengal posted 93.94 per cent gain to reach 1.92 mkg from 0.99 mkg in Jan-Feb 2020.

Assam was the only State where production declined in the two months by 14.81 per cent to 0.23 mkg.

“South Indian production rose to 31.35 mkg from 29.32 mkg in Jan-Feb 2020, marking an increase of 2.03 mkg or 6.92 per cent”, Rajesh Gupta said.

Tamil Nadu topped the country’s tea production table at 20.67 mkg against 19.90 mkg in Jan-Feb 2020, marking an increase of 0.77 mkg or 3.87 per cent.

“Kerala’s production rose to 9.87 mkg from 8.67 mkg in Jan-Feb 2020 – an increase of 1.20 mkg or 13.84 per cent,” Rajesh Gupta noted.

In calendar 2020, for the first time in recent years, India’s tea production dropped in a year over the previous year. That year, the country’s output declined by 134.48 mkg to dip to 1255.60 mkg. The initial indications are that the rising trend in India’s tea output will be revived in 2021 but producers are generally concerned that production might be adversely affected as the year progresses if lockdown is imposed in tea growing states to fight against the second wave of Covid-19.

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