The Tata Tea/ULFA Story
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BACKGROUND NOTE Contd..The company's
subsidiaries comprised Consolidated Coffee Ltd., Conscofe Investments Ltd.,
Tata Tea Inc., and Tata Tetley GB Ltd. (TTGBL)[2] . Tata Tea also had joint
ventures with Hitachi (marketing tea and coffee), NYK Line[3] (acting as an
agent for transportation, operations and management of sea ports, container
depots etc.) and Lloyds (providing solutions to insurance companies
regarding ship surveys, cargo surveys, pre-shipment surveys, mediclaims
etc.)
Tata Tea's tea business was divided into bulk tea and packed & instant tea
divisions. The company's major packaged tea brands included Kanan Devan,
Agni, Gemini, Chakra Gold, Lucky Cup, Tata Tea, Leo, Zesta etc. The company
pioneered the concept of poly packs in the tea industry. Besides tea, the
company was involved in the coffee, strawberries, mushrooms and spices
businesses.
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The company had around 60000 employees, spread across
21 tea estates in Assam, 4 in West Bengal, 24 in Kerala, 4 in Tamil Nadu,
besides a coffee and a cardamom estate in Tamil Nadu. Tata Tea produced
58.2 million kgs of tea in 1999-00. The company's distribution network
comprised over 2,000 selling agents and retail outlets in almost every
corner of the country. Tata Tea's profit after tax for 2000-01 was Rs 1
billion on a total income of Rs 8.7 billion.
With almost half of Tata Tea's tea estates being in Assam, the company
faced several problems due to the political unrest in the state (See
Box). The terrorists, usually from the poorer sections of society,
sought funds from companies operating in Assam. Gradually, all
businesses in Assam were coerced into making monthly payments to the
terrorists. These payments varied from Rs 100 for cart-pullers to a
couple of lakhs for owners of medium-sized factories [4]. |
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A NOTE ON ASSAM'S POLITICAL UNREST
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India's NorthEastern region comprises seven small/medium states
– Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Tripura
and Mizoram. Anthropologically, culturally and linguistically, the
North East is quite different from the rest of India and has never
been completely brought into the Indian ‘mainstream.'The people of
the region have always complained that they have been neglected by
the Indian governement over the years. This sense of alienation
resulted in the emergence of militant groups demanding sepearate
states for themselves. Almost all the states had their own
seperatist militant groups.
Political unrest in Assam dates back to the pre-Independence era,
when the British brought workers from Bengal into the region. Over
the next few decades, the migration of Bengalis into the area
continued unabated. After the 1971 Bangladesh War and the Bangladesh
drought in 1972-73, there was an influx of East-Pakistan Muslim
Bengalis into the area. This made the Assamese Hindus a minority in
their own state and led to the birth of the Assam Movement,
spearheaded by AASU (All Assam Students Union) and the AGSP (Assam
Gana Sangram Parishad). By the 1990s, the ULFA and NDFB had emerged
as the two biggest militant outfits in the state. While the ULFA
movement was started as a protest against the increasing dominance
of Bengalis in Assam, the Bodos (an Assamese tribe) were fighting
against the increasing dominance of Assamese Hindus. |
Source: ICMR
THE ASSAM TEA INDUSTRY TERROR STORY
TATA TEA's DEALS WITH THE ULFA AND THE GOVERNMENT
THE UNSOLVED PROBLEM
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION:
ADDITIONAL READINGS & REFERENCES:
[2] TTGBL was formed in 2000 as a Special Purpose Vehicle for acquiring the UK based tea company Tetley Group Ltd.
Tetley was one of the best known tea companies in the world and the world's second largest company, selling branded
tea.
[3] By the end of 2001, Tata Tea had divested 40% of its 50% stake in the NYK Line JV and was planning to terminate
the Hitachi JV, as it had decided to concentrate only on the core businesses of tea and coffee.
[4] Even Jafa admitted that tea companies, trading companies, public sector units and even state and central
government departments had been paying ‘protection money'to ULFA and Bodo militants. TTGBL was formed in 2000 as
a Special Purpose Vehicle for acquiring the UK based tea company Tetley
Group Ltd.
Tetley was one of the best known tea companies in the world and the world's
second largest company, selling branded
tea.
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