Tea Board of India deputy chairman Arun Kumar Ray on Thursday said the industry should change its business model by generating demand through quality and new innovative ideas instead of depending on subsidies.

Speaking at the 55th annual general meeting of the Tea Research Association (TRA) in Calcutta, Ray said the Tea Board was itself becoming lean and had taken numerous measures on its own for revenue generation. He appreciated the steps taken by the TRA towards self-sufficiency.

TRA chairman P.K. Bezboruah said the association has plans to become fully self-sufficient in five years through internal revenue generation as government funding has become extremely unstable over the years.

Bezboruah said the TRA follows the payscales of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the salary-related costs of employees was 88 per cent of it’s budget. Without proper flow of funds from the government, it was very difficult to run the organisation only on industry funds, he added.

He said since the government provides majority funding for research and development in other sectors, it could support research and development in tea despite the TRA achieving self-sufficiency.

TRA director A.K. Barooah and Assam Petrochemicals Ltd managing director Ratul Bordoloi showcased a joint TRA-APL project on the use of methanol in the tea industry. They said methanol was a cleaner and non-fossil fuel, which has a higher calorific value than coal, for use in tea factories.

The TRA also showcased TRAgnext QualiTeaProfiler, a machine that counts fine tea leaf without any human intervention, reducing the process to seconds and improving overall accuracy.

The machine has been developed jointly with Agnext Technologies.

Niti Aayog member and JNU Chancellor Vijay Kumar Saraswat said the tea industry’s voice had not been heard and offered to arrange a meeting with Niti Aayog members soon. He said the difference between small growers and big growers needs to be bridged. The small-grower section needs to be properly regulated under the existing laws, which are applicable to the organised sector.

Saraswat said the TRA’s expenditure on manpower and salaries was more than 80 per cent when the optimum ratio of an effective research organisation should be around 50 per cent on salaries and 50 per cent on research and development. He appreciated the current system of the industry funding the TRA and said he would take up the matter of government funding with the department of commerce. “With a revamp in the industry using technology, the tea industry can contribute well to the export basket,” he said and stressed on the use of new technology.