The Nilgiris Documentation Centre (NDC) has urged the T.N. Chief Minister to appoint, without delay, a full-time managing director for Indcoserve, a tea cooperative federation, in order to help distressed small tea- growers in the Nilgiris.
D. Venugopal of the NDC, in a petition, said that the apex tea cooperative body has been without a full-time head for some time. Recently, small tea-growers had announced a relay fast to bring attention to their plight, he stated.
Indcoserve, the largest tea growers cooperative in the country, accounts for about 15 per cent of the district’s tea production and is the only hope of the small tea-growers. The cooperative is in the best position to emerge as the price leader in the small growers’ segment. However, it has been beset with the management problems for a long time, Mr. Venuugopal said. A huge debt burden is also said to have crippled the management further.
