Estimates till the end of November available with The Financial Express portray an all-India increase of 6.5 per cent over last year's levels. An increase of over 9 per cent in production levels in north India and a drop in 2 per cent in south India has led to a tea production of 812m kg up to November.

Industry analysts opine that an addition of 50 to 55m kg between north and south India in December may lead to record production this year.

As per estimated figures, the north Indian tea production which stood at 621m kg up to end-November is mainly attributed to increases in production in Cachar, Terai and Dooars which increased by 13.4 per cent, 13.2 per cent and 12.5 per cent respectively.

The heavy cropping in the month of October and November this year has raisedforecast levels in 1998 over 1997. According to an industry analyst, trends during the earlier part of the year were indicative at production levels between 840 and 845m kg.

Conducive weather conditions in north India have raised hopes for a bumper crop this time. Apart from Cachar, the Assam Valley saw a production of 393m kg up to November compared to 365m kg in 1997 (an increase by 7 per cent). The total Assam production increased by over 8 per cent.

Industry estimates indicated a 12.3 per cent increase in production in West Bengal, which was mainly contributed by a 13.2 per cent increase in Terai, 12.5 per cent increase in Dooars and a 7.5 per cent increase in Darjeeling.

As far as south Indian tea production is concerned, except for increases to the tune of 6.4 per cent in Karnataka and a meagre one per cent in Kerala, there was an over 4 per cent reduction in Tamil Nadu tea production. It may be noted that among the south Indian states, Tamil Nadu accounts for the maximum production which wasabout 114m kg till November.

The Tea Board has pegged the year-end production at 860m kg. The last two years figures indicate that the months of November and December produced a crop within 125 million kg on a combined basis.

In 1997, the November and December crop in northern India was 56.58m kg and 29.79m kg respectively. South India crop on the other hand was at 38m kg between the last two months of 1997. A total of 124m kg was added in the last two months to arrive at a total year-end figure of 811m kg last year. In 1996, the addition in the last two months was about 121m kg.

Almost 87 per cent of the total production up to now has been of the CTC type (706m kg), while the rest has been of the orthodox varieties at levels of 98m kg.