Kathmandu. The tea industry in Nepal is in serious trouble after the new ‘Standard Operating Procedure’ (SOP) implemented by India from May 1. In such a situation, businessmen have demanded a solution to this issue from Prime Minister Balendra Shah.
According to the new directory, separate laboratory testing of every truck and every consignment of Nepali tea entering India has been made mandatory.
According to businessmen, the Nepalese Embassy in New Delhi has been in constant communication with officials of the Indian Ministry of Commerce and the Tea Board of India requesting them to remove the blockage. Tea traders have now demanded that there should be direct intervention at the Prime Minister level to solve this problem. He says that earlier also in such cases the then Prime Ministers had solved the problem by talking directly to the Indian counterpart, hence this time too high level political dialogue is necessary.
Businessmen say that Prime Minister Balendra Shah should immediately take concrete and direct initiatives to save the market for Nepal’s main exportable agricultural produce.
Senior Vice President of Nepal Tea Producers Association, Shiv Kumar Gupta, said that due to this strict rule, exports have almost stopped for the last half month. According to him, during this period, Indian buyers have purchased only two trucks of tea in very small quantities at their own risk, which includes about 10–12 tonnes of tea from the Terai region and 4–5 tonnes of tea from the hill region.
He said that the tea season has just started, so at present there is not much commercial loss but due to good rains the production will increase rapidly in the next one week. If exports are not opened by then, industrialists and farmers will have to suffer huge losses due to lack of storage.
Similarly, Nepal Tea Association President Kamal Mainali said that due to India’s new rules, the risks for traders have increased significantly. He said that if tea remains stuck at the border for 15 days, there is a risk of its quality getting spoiled. Also, if the tea fails the lab test, there will be no option left but to destroy it.
Mainali said that tea cannot be sold before the report comes. If the tea fails in the lab test, it is not allowed to be brought back to Nepal. If it has to be brought back, 40 percent custom duty and 13 percent VAT will have to be paid. In such a situation, traders will have to suffer huge financial losses. He said that this problem does not seem to be solved only at the administrative or diplomatic level, hence higher political intervention has become extremely necessary.
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