Ministry of Commerce and Industry of Republic : Merger of Commodity Boards

The Government is not planning merger of the Commodity Boards into a single entity to improve production and exports of plantation crops. it has taken various initiatives through the individual Commodity Boards to enhance the quality and boost exports of the plantation crops by way of providing financial and technical assistance to the growers and the industry for new planting, replanting, rejuvenation, quality up-gradation, value addition and market promotion through the schemes implemented by these Boards.

The exports of coffee, tea and spices have recorded positive growth in 2017-18 against 2016-17and 2015-16. The export of tobacco has shown a decreasing trend. The details of export during last three years are:

(Qty. in MT and Value in Rs. Crores)

Crop	2015-16		2016-17		2017-18
	Export (Qty)	Value	Export (Qty)	Value	Export (Qty)	Value
Tea	2,32,920	4493.10	2,27,630	4632.50	2,56,570	5064.88
Coffee	3,10,015	5056	3,43,933	5447	3,95,014*	6210
Spices	8,43,255	16238.23	9,47,790	17812.23	1,028,060	17980.16
Tobacco	2,43,418	6058.13	2,31,800	5975.08	2,12,916	5539.94

Source: Commodity Boards. * Provisional.

The details of grants received by these Boards for implementation of schemes in the respective sectors during the last three years are as below:

Board	2015-16 (Actual)	2016-17 (Actual)	2017-18 (Revised)
Tea Board	179.46	150.41	190.60
Coffee Board	157.34	154.74	186.55
Rubber Board	241.74	184.75	183.08
Spices Board	115.35	89.35	97.10
Tobacco Board	Tobacco Board has not drawn any grants from the Government.

The Department of Commerce has approved to extend 7^th CPC benefits to Pensioners of Coffee Board and other Commodity Boards - Tea Board, Rubber Board, Spices Board and Tobacco Board with effect from 1.1.2016 for Tobacco Board's pensioners.

This information was given by the Minister of State of Commerce and Industry, C. R. Chaudhary, in a written reply in the Lok Sabha today.

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MM/SB