Tea plantation in Champavat, Uttarakhand: soil preparation for seeds and cuttings

From the archive record

Women worker planting tea saplings and cuttings and seeds at a tea estate in Champawat of Kumaon region in Uttarakhand. Soil is being turned and prepared, plastic sheeting is being placed atop the plants of Camellia sinensis. This is archival footage from earlier years of tea plantation in the Indian Himalaya. Experts say this leaves the local producers with no option but to sell the tea as a brandless entity in the Kolkata auction market. The brand giants lift it in bulk, package it as their product and the country enjoys the flavour without giving credit to its real producers, they say. “This is agonising yet it shows the potential of the local tea to rise as a brand name,” says retired IAS officer and tea expert SS Pangti. Earlier in 2004, the ND Tewari government had set up Uttarakhand