CAG asks Tea Board to devise long-term marketing plan

Official auditor CAG today asked the Tea Board to frame a long-term strategic plan to market Indian tea, as the current export promotion polices have failed to yield any desired results.

"Market diversification efforts, including exploring new markets through its overseas offices and other promotional activities, have not yielded any effective results and exports have remained largely stagnant," said a Comptroller and Auditor General's report on performance audit of Tea Board.

The country's tea export in 2008, 2009 and 2010 stood at 203 million kg, 198 million kg and 193 million kg, respectively.

India's export share has declined from 15.17% in 1993 to 11.15% in 2010, it said.

"We are of the view that Tea Board's proposed course of action and timelines for improving the results of marketing and promotional schemes can be achieved only when the Board is able to frame a long-term strategic plan and detailed plan for marketing of Indian tea," it said.

The report said that medium term export strategy covering introduction of Indian tea logo, exporter rating system and market portfolio diversification was also not implemented fully.

"Tea Board neither fixed any target/outcome in any scheme nor laid down any mechanism to measure impact of such schemes," it added.

The CAG report also said that the board did not prescribe regular cost studies despite India having the highest cost of production amongst major tea-producing countries in the world and cost of sales often being above the auction realisation.

Tea Board failed to utilise the funds allocated for training activities effectively, it added.

It said that there is no mechanism in the board to exercise its regulatory function to prevent manufacturing, buying and export distribution of adulterated tea.

Further, the report said that considering the poor performance of the board in enhancing productivity of tea in India by replacement of unproductive tea bushes "we are of the view that Tea Board is not fully equipped to effectively deal with this critical situation threatening the industry."