Assam Hands Out Tourism Grants to 34 More Tea Gardens
Assam's Tourism Minister distributed sanction letters to 34 tea gardens under Phase II of the state's Tea Tourism Development Scheme, each eligible for up to Rs 2 crore to build out accommodation and visitor amenities.
On Saturday in Guwahati, Assam Tourism Minister Jayanta Malla Baruah distributed sanction letters to 34 tea gardens under Phase II of the Assam Tea Tourism Development Scheme. Each of the 34 is eligible for a grant of up to Rs 2 crore (approximately US$240,000).
The grant money is for infrastructure rather than for tea. Gardens may spend it on accommodation, on visitor amenities, and on recreational activities. Phase I of the scheme aided 22 gardens, which puts 56 estates inside the programme across the two phases.
"Today, I had the pleasure of distributing sanction letters to 34 selected tea gardens under Phase II of the Assam Tea Tourism Development Scheme," Baruah wrote in a post on X.
Baruah put the case plainly: the state has tourism it has not yet worked, and the scheme is his office's attempt to turn the tea heritage itself into the destination.
The same event took up a less decorative subject. Officials discussed establishing 2 lakh (200,000) additional individual household latrines and securing access to potable drinking water for tea garden households. That is the unglamorous half of the ledger, and it is the half that decides whether a garden can host anyone overnight.
Neither the sanction list nor the reporting names the 34 gardens or the districts they sit in, so there is no address yet for a reader to write down. What the money buys is specific even where the recipients are not: a garden that takes this grant is building toward a guest room, a footpath, a tasting counter, the fixtures a visitor actually stands in. Wait for the paint to dry before booking anything, but the 56 gardens now inside the programme, 22 from Phase I and 34 from this round, are the list a future estate tour will be drawn from.
The scheme buys beds, paths and plumbing. It does not buy strength in the cup. That part still has to come out of the leaf, and no sanction letter has ever improved a second flush.
Sources: Assam Tribune, "34 Tea Gardens Receive Rs 2 Cr Grants In Phase II Of Tourism Development Scheme"; The Week (PTI wire), "As Tea Tourism..."; Devdiscourse, "Assam Elevates Tea Tourism: Phase II Sanction Letters Distributed to Gardens".