Indian tea production has seen a declining trend since the beginning of the year 2012 mainly due to erratic weather. Continuing the trend, the production has declined across the region in the month of July and total tea production dropped by 11%. As per the tea board data, there was drop of 2.44% in total production from the Assam Valley to 67.92 million kg for the month from 69.62 million kg last year, however Cachar output grew marginally by 0.14 million kg to 6.83 million kg from 6.69 million kg in same month last year.
Output of Bengal declined to 33.48 million kg against 33.93 million kg in the same month a year ago. While, Darjeeling contributed 1.34 million kg, registering a growth of 7.2 per cent against 1.25 million kg in July 2011, output in the Dooars fell to 19.87 million kg from 23.80 million kg. The production in Terai grew 38.10 per cent to 12.25 million kg from 8.87 million kg last year.
In July, overall output in North India declined 1.77% to 109.95 million kg from 111.94 million kg in 2011, while production in south India grew 6.56% to 22.72 million kg from 21.32 million kg in July 2011.
Domestic tea production during the seven months period (January-July) dropped by 4.23% to 470.76 million kg from 491.59 million kg in same period last year. Of the total production, Assam’s contribution remained the highest at 223.46 million kg followed by 138.05 million kg from the whole South region and 105.89 million kg from the total Bengal region of which Darjeeling’s contribution was 4.75 million kg.
The production in North India fell by 4% to 33.27 million kg in January-July 2012 to 34.81 million kg in the same period year-ago. The output in South India also dropped 4% to 13.80 million kg, from 14.35 million kg.