Assam distributed Rs 94.70 crore to 486 tea gardens on March 9 under a state scheme to grow its orthodox and specialty tea output, Finance Minister Ajanta Neog said, according to The News Mill and Sentinel Assam.

The payout runs under the Assam Tea Industries Special Incentive Scheme, or ATISIS, for the current financial year, Neog said. The scheme targets orthodox and specialty tea, the whole-leaf styles that fetch a higher price at auction than ordinary CTC but cost a garden more to produce.

ATISIS covers four measures, Neog said: a 3% annual interest subvention on working-capital loans, a per-kilogram production subsidy for orthodox or specialty tea, a 25% subsidy on the plant and machinery an orthodox or specialty unit needs, and an agricultural income-tax holiday running through the 2026 to 2027 financial year. The per-kilogram subsidy stands at Rs 10, with the state moving to raise it to Rs 15, Neog said.

Orthodox tea keeps the leaf whole through rolling and drying rather than cutting it into the granules a CTC machine produces. It is the minority method in Assam, where most gardens run CTC lines, because a whole-leaf line costs more to build and staff. The subsidies address that cost gap directly: the interest subvention on the working capital a garden ties up in the slower orthodox process, the machinery subsidy on the plant, and the per-kilogram payment on the output itself.

The March 9 disbursement follows a Rs 99 crore round paid to 378 gardens for the prior financial year, with a wider pool of 486 gardens sharing this year's total, according to the reports. Assam grows more than half of India's tea by volume but only a fraction of it as orthodox, and the scheme is meant to make the switch, or the expansion, pencil out for a garden weighing whether to add a whole-leaf line. Whether the incentive shifts the state's production mix toward orthodox is a question the auction volumes will answer over the coming seasons.

Sources: The News Mill, Assam releases Rs 94.70 crore to tea industry under special incentive scheme; The Sentinel Assam, Assam Distributes Rs 94 Crore Among 486 Tea Gardens Under Special Incentive Scheme.