Tamil Nadu Elections: Tea Plantation Workers Face Livelihood Crisis, Seek Relief Ahead Of Polls

Small tea growers and plantation workers in Tamil Nadu’s Nilgiris district are facing a deepening livelihood crisis. Falling green tea leaf prices and rising cultivation costs are putting pressure on one of India’s most renowned tea-growing regions. The Nilgiris is home to nearly 65,000 small tea growers, with close to 4.5 lakh people, around 80 percent of the district’s population, dependent on the tea sector. But growers say the price they receive for green tea leaves has not kept pace with rising costs.