Agartala, Jan 20 (UNI) Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb today released the

logo of Tripura Tea Development Corporation (TTDC) and Tripureswari tea brand.

The Chief Minister said the state government was contemplating to export tea to

Bangladesh. In order to create a niche for Tripura Tea, the state government was

also working with Union Commerce ministry on developing Tripura Tea brand for

international markets.

"Despite having quality and potential, Tripura tea did not get due attention even

in 38 years of the existence of TTDC," Mr Deb said.

“The serious deprivation of tea industry by my predecessors has affected the

most promising economic sector where about 30,000 families are directly involved,”

he added.

Bangladesh was importing tea from countries like Sri Lanka, which has quality

similar to that of Tripura tea, but there was no attempt to popularize it among the

neighbour, he said.

"We have heard about footballers at the FIFA World Cup in Brazil savouring bed

tea plucked from Manu valley estate of North Tripura. Still we could not use the

popularity, our tea had gained for its promotion," he rued.

Tripura is the second tea producer of Northeast after Assam, having 284 tea

estates spread over 6430 hectares of land with the production capacity of about

10 million kg.

The state government has taken steps to improve the plucking method of leafs

to retain the brand of best quality, the chief minister stated.

“At present 5-6 leafs are being plucked from a mature bud, but TTDC has been

asked to pluck 1-2 most tender leaves and also to be careful of processing so

that quality of the tea would be retained for international market,” Deb said and

added that production and manufacturing of best quality of tea would be another

attraction of tourists.

He said, besides, existing tea auction market at Guwahati and Kolkata, Tripura

was exploring ways to get entry into the tea auction market of Bangladesh, the

nearest one being at Srimangal, about 5 kilometres from north-western border

of the state.

TTDC logo features Tripura's iconic landmark, Neermahal, the water palace

of eastern India.

UNI BB AND