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Basu assures help to boost tea segment in West Bengal

West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu has assured the state-based tea industry of all assistance in overcoming their problems and welcomed the captains' decision to purchase more gardens in the state.

Participating in the formal inauguration on Friday of the three-day tea festival ''Cha Cha Cha'', sponsored by all the major tea-producing companies in India, Basu said that since the beginning of the century, the state remained one of the top class tea-producing states with the famed ''Darjeeling Tea'' going worldwide.

Till its disintegration, the former Soviet Union used to purchase at least 60 per cent of the entire tea produced in the state, Basu said and pointed out that after some initial setbacks, the new Commonwealth of Independent States was also buying a huge quantity of Darjeeling Tea because of its world class and unmatched quality.

Terming it as a healthy trend in favour of the tea industry as a whole, the chief minister said he, however, had received a memorandum from the Consultative Committee of the Planters' Association highlighting the present state of affairs in the industry.

''I have promised to look into their problems and also decided to take up the issue during my next meeting with the Union Commerce Minister,'' Basu said.

UNI