Darjeeling tea, which is under threat from the import of cheap and allegedly sub-standard quality of tea from Nepal, received support from both sides of the aisle as Raju Bista, two-time BJP member of Parliament from the Darjeeling constituency, and former Rajya Sabha member and Trinamool Congress leader Shanta Chhetri took up the plight of the industry with the top brass of the Union government.

Writing to Piyush Goyal, the commerce minister, Bista highlighted that tea consignments coming to India from Nepal were not being tested for maximum residue level of 59 insecticides according to the regulations of the FSSAI, the nation’s food regulator.

“There are serious flaws in the screening process at the Customs entry points and the authorised officers (who are mandated under FSSAI law to test tea) have failed to ensure only clean tea enters the country,” Bista wrote to Goyal.

He pointed out that only six samples were tested during 2018-19 and 16 samples between 2020-22 for MRL level of 22 insecticides only. “Despite the miniscule number of samples tested and omission of several parameters, the results reveal that 40-50 per cent of them were hazardous and not suitable for human consumption,” he mentioned.

About 16 million kg tea enters India on an average annually from Nepal and at least 6-7 million kg are believed to be of the orthodox variety, which competes with Darjeeling which also produces about 6.5 million kg of tea annually.

Bista sought Goyal’s intervention in regulating tea imports into India and safeguarding the health and lives of Indian consumers.

Chhetri, who hails from the hills and has been vocal about the negative impact of Nepal tea on Darjeeling tea, wrote to a host of officials, including the directorate-general of foreign trade, chairperson of the FSSAI, chairman of the Tea Board India, apart from Goyal.

She highlighted the failure of the Tea Board in taking action despite finding that the failure ratio, under FSSAI standards, of imported Nepal tea was high. “…no steps have been taken by Tea Board officials to punish with imprisonment under section 41 of the Tea Act, 1953; section 59 of the Food Safety & Standard Act, 2005 and/or section 272 of Indian Penal Code for offence of adulteration,” Chhetri wrote.

Chhetri also pointed out that the Tea Board, which reports to Goyal, did not feel the need to increase the number of tests after seeing the high percentage of failure. The former RS member urged that samples of Nepal teas should be collected from retail outlets, warehouses and consumer packets and tested for food safety norms.

She, like Bista, highlighted the failure of customs officials, to ensure only clean tea is imported to India.