TEA ECONOMY OF INDIA

Despite the importance of tea in the national economy, not much attention has so far been paid by economists to the subject. While focusing on this neglected area, the present book attempts to analyze the problems faced by Indian tea industry in order to help the policy makers. The present concern in the Indian tea industry is to meet the domestic demand and maintain, if not increase, our exports in the international market. The main constraint in this regard is on the supply side. This study, while trying to estimate the area and yield responses of Indian tea producers, experiments with alternative ways of incorporating more information available from the secondary sources than has been done by the earlier studies in this subject. It also attempts to look at the responses from a disaggregate level, covering all the important tea producing regions of India. Though using appropriate econometric techniques, the study helps in identification of the problem regions, and the differences in the responses of different regions, states and districts.