Minister Dissanayake hold discussions with world bank officials

Navin Dissanayake, the Minister of Plantation Industries recently held discussions with World Bank officials to explore possibilities of obtaining WB assistance to upgrade and develop tea plantations managed by RPCs with a view to enhance profitability of RPCs. World Bank was represented by Ulrich Shmitt, Seenithambi Manoharan and Emannuel Salinas while the minister was assisted by Jeevaka Atapattu, Agricultural Specialist Consultant.

After fruitful discussions, World Bank officials agreed to allocate US$ 70 million for this important project and it was proposed that 50% of the amount would be released as a concessionary loan and the balance to be provided as an outright grant.

The purpose of this facility is to promote replanting of tea which has been badly neglected over the years and to upgrade the dilapidated roads network in tea estates. Part of the fund will be used to cluster a suitable number of scattered tea factories in to a centrally located large scale automated tea processing plant that will improve the quality of tea produced at a lower cost.

It was proposed to mitigate the negative impact of climate change and erratic rainfall patterns by introducing novel water management techniques such as sprinkler irrigation to drought stricken tea fields enabling year round harvesting of tea leaves. A suggestion was made to market made tea directly to consumers by the tea factory owners or producing estates bypassing tea auctions to help increasing profit margins of producers.

This project is expected to enhance the competitiveness of most of the tea estates and benefit many of the estate workers and employees.