Rajadurai sets course for PA future

By Shiran Illanperuma

Roshan Rajadurai was re-elected as Chairman of the Planters’ Association for the third consecutive year at the 161st AGM. Rajadurai, who is also the Managing Director of Kelani Valley Plantations and Talawakalle Tea Estates, in a very direct speech said: “Nothing much has changed from last year except for the rapidly deteriorating prices for tea and rubber.”

The plantation industry has been battered by issues in recent years, incurring heavy losses due to a blend of low productivity and low prices. In a bid to spur growth, he called for redoubling of efforts to increase productivity while moving forward with technological upgrades and implementation of newer, innovative managerial systems.

Rajadurai identified key issues plaguing the industry including “politicisation of the industry, fluctuating weather patterns, low productivity, tight Government regulations, stiff competition both foreign and local and the spectre of out migration of plantation workers”.

The ongoing issues of worker wages and Government subsidies were singled out as particularly stifling conditions for growth. According to Rajadurai, the PA has increased wages 11-fold from 1992-2002, but with record lows in commodity prices another wage hike would be impossible.

Further compounding the issue was the disparity in Government subsidies. “The Government is currently subsidising over Rs. 1 billion per month in guaranteed green leaf price payments to the tea smallholders alone,” said Rajadurai. 

Without the help of such subsidies, Rajadurai says the Regional Plantations Companies (RPCs) cannot meet make up for losses let alone meet the demand for higher wages.

Chiming in on the issue, economist and guest speaker Dr. Indrajit Coomaraswamy decried Sri Lanka’s so-called ‘culture of entitlement’, calling for a move towards productivity-based wages, something the PA has pursued time and again.

On the issue of subsidies, Coomaraswamy called the disparity in treatment between small-holders and RPCs ‘blatant discrimination.’ However he stopped short of offering a concrete solution as the State budget is too restricted to extend subsidies to RPCs and smallholders do not have the same purchasing power as RPCs to press for loans.

Coomaraswamy also commented on factors outside of local stakeholders’ control, namely the ongoing unrest in Russia and the Middle East; Sri Lanka’s primary tea export destinations.

Such uncertainty would force local growers to change traditional marketing practices and seek out alternative export destinations he said. North America’s demand for iced tea and Europe’s demand for artisanal teas were both identified as possible markets for Ceylon Tea growers to break into.

Despite these simmering challenges, Rajadurai states that stakeholders at a managerial level understand the complex issues facing the industry and that they are up to task. “We have discarded some of the old managerial systems and procedures that were more suited to a bygone era,” he said.

However, some sources within the PA worry such changes will not come fast enough to reheat the tepid industry.

At around 160 years old, Rajadurai said that the plantation industry had already passed its glory days but still had much to give. “Despite a diversifying economy, the industry still has much to contribute to the country with vast resources of people and land,” he said.