MUZAFFARABAD, May 24: The AJK government has leased out 3,000 acres of forest land to a group of three companies for 15 years for tea cultivation in the area.
Agreements to this effect were signed by the representatives of First Investors Group, consisting of Khawaja Foods (Pvt) Ltd, Qarshi Foundation and Neelum Plantations (Pvt) Ltd, and the AJK Forest Secretary Ilyas Abbasi in the presence of AJK Prime Minister Sardar Attique Ahmed Khan here on Thursday.
A representative of the group said the development of tea plantations will bring in investment of about Rs1.5 billion over the next five years to the AJK with no financing by the state government.
The leased out land is located around the famous hill resort of Pir Chinasi, at an altitude of around 8,000 feet in the east of Muzaffarabad city.
At a briefing, Adviser to the AJK prime minister on Information Raja Yasin Khan told reporters that the land had been leased out against Rs600,000 per annum.
"It's not a big amount but our objective has been to bring in private investment in this sector and we are facilitating the investors," he said.
Mr Khan said the AJK and some areas of neighbouring North West Frontier Province offered ideal locations for tea cultivation and if utilised properly could help lower Pakistan's spending on tea imports.
It may be mentioned here that Pakistan is the third largest importer of tea in the world and spends more than Rs13 billion per annum on its import.
The adviser said that the consortium had done a detailed study on AJK for two years before venturing upon this project in an area, which has a potential of producing over 100 million kg of tea.
The group, he said, would train and encourage local landowners and farmers to set up tea sapling nurseries in their holdings on a guaranteed buy back agreement basis.
He told the group would also establish tea processing factories after tea plantations were set up in the area at large scale. These units would buy all the raw green leaf produced by the private sector farmers in the area, he added.
The adviser said that the National Tea Research Institute at Shinkiari (NWFP) would provide technical backstopping and the group would also start tea research stations in this territory.
He was optimistic that since the tea cultivation was a labour activity, it will generate local employment opportunities in good number.
The adviser said the federal government was fully cooperating with AJK and would provide trunk infrastructure support for access roads and utilities. Apart from that water channels would be done on a cost sharing basis with the investors group.
Mr Khan urged the local landowners and farmers to give up the culture of cultivating traditional crops, which sometimes would not meet their basic expenditures.
"A farmer can earn up to Rs80,000 per year from tea cultivation from one kanal piece of land, which is several times more than the income from any other crop," he said.
He said the farmers interested in tea cultivation would also get interest free loans from the scheduled banks under the policy of the federal government.
