Rajya Sabha member Shanta Chhetri tore into a response of minister of state (commerce & industry) Anupriya Patel in the Lower House of Parliament on the influx of low quality Nepal tea that has precipitated a crisis of existence for Darjeeling tea.

In a letter written on February 10 to Patel’s senior colleague commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal, Chhetri slammed the ‘‘display of total apathy towards the issue’’ in the response given to a question of BJP MP Raju Bista from Darjeeling, seeking details of the efforts undertaken by the Government of India to control the unabated import of ‘‘hazardous’’ Nepal tea.

Bista, who sits in the other end of the political spectrum to Chhetri, had asked three questions, two of which dealt with low quality Nepal tea.

In the first question, he asked whether the ministry is aware that low quality tea is being imported from other countries to India and being sold as Darjeeling tea in the world market later.

In her reply, Patel cited a Tea Board notification that said all importers bringing tea for distribution in India shall inform about the place of storage of such tea to the nearest Tea Board office within 24 hours of entry, apart from the requirement to mention the source of origin of the imported tea on the label of a packet, among others.

Chhetri argued the objective behind the notification was to enable the Tea Board to identify the places of storage, allowing it to draw samples and analyse for the maximum residue level of 33 types of insecticides and monocrotophos as laid down by the Food Safety and Standards.

She alleged that while the Tea Board is testing for the presence of monocrotophos in Indian tea samples, such statutory parameters laid down under the various regulations are not followed when it comes to Nepal teas.

“It is no secret that most of the Nepal teas that are exported to India are hazardous for health and do not meet Indian Food & Safety Standards,” Chhetri wrote in her letter to Goyal.

Patel in her reply also told Parliament that the FSSAI (Food Safety and Standards Authority of India) conducted joint training of the Tea Board officers, customs officials who are notified as authorised officers at land customs stations for strengthening of food import clearance of tea from Nepal. Chhetri reminded that an authorised officer would allow entry after signing NOC in Form 3.

It is mandatory in the form of the declaration of results of analysis of the samples conforming to Indian Food Safety & Standards Act 2006. She claimed that the officers were illegally issuing Form 3 without checking MRL of 33 types of insecticides and monocrotophos.

In 2019, a Tea Board reply to an RTI had revealed three out of six samples of Nepal tea tested had failed.