Major ten year plantation industry development plan

by Hiran H. Senewirtane

The Government has drafted a major ten-year development plan for the plantation industry, to be implemented from 2006 to meet the future challenges in the sector.

The proposed plan known as the "Long-Tem Development Plan 2006-2015" has been forwarded to the National Council of Economic Development (NCED) for their review, Director of Planning- Ministry of Plantation Industries A.P. Leelasena told the Daily News.

He said that this long term development plan will focus on the development on tea, rubber, coconut and sugar cane industries, which includes identified national and important issues in the country's plantation sector. All plantation sector stakeholders forwarded their inputs for this project report. Under this 10 year plan it has given emphasis on re-plantation on existing lands he said.

Leelasena also said that more than Rs. 4 billion is required for the purpose of re-plating of tea in the sector and out of which Rs. 1 billion will be obtained from Beneficiary Fund and the balance is to be negotiated with the Treasury and other funding agencies.

Leelasena said that when analysing the tea sector it was found that the main issue where the tea sector is concerned was that replanting is not happening and most of the tea estates are in production for the last 30 to 40 years.

Under this programme, it is planned to replant tea by 2 per cent in the existing lands and add 500 hectares annually to the industry. It is expected to provide financial assistance for Rs 1.2 million for a hectare for high grown areas and Rs. 8,000 million for low and mid grown tea growing areas, he said.

The Ministry of Plantation Industries has proposed a Revolving Fund for plantation management companies and tea growers for this purpose, he said.