Excerpts of the Address of Mr.Santosh Sarangi, Joint Secretary (Plantations), Ministry of Commerce, Government of India at the UPASI's 125th Year Summit 'Winds of Change' -29th September 2018

摘要

At the outset, I compliment every member of UPASI for celebrating 125 years of UPASI's existence and it is actually a big achievement that all the members of UPASI and each one of us as Indian citizen need to be proud of.I would also like to compliment Mr.Sunny Varghese for the keynote address. The audiences were captivated by his address which was very apt to the present day's context, scenario and to the theme of the Summit 'Winds of Change'.Plantation sector is facing many challenges. I have been interacting with each of the segment viz. rubber, coffee, spices and tea. All the segments are dealing with the increase in cost of production, facing the challenges such as increased labour cost,labour wage, input cost and trying to remain competitive in the present day scenario. Plantation sector is also dealing with the new segment of growers especially in the tea industry where large number of small growers are coming into the industry and they are challenging the entire business structure and business model of the established tea estates. The climate change issue which is very evident in the recent floods in Kerala and Hassan and Chikmagalur in Karnataka.