Darjeeling Cinchona Plantation showing signs of revival

Darjeeling: The cinchona plantation in the hills is showing signs of revival and is expected to generate a revenue of more than Rs 10 crore in the coming year.

The barks are being harvested and the estimated 700 tonnes will be picked up in the course of the year by Chemi Homeo — a Mumbai-based company.

The sales figures are the highest in the history of the century-old plantation, which has been running at an annual loss of Rs 24 crore for a couple of decades. In fact, so far, the average annual revenue generated by the plantation spread over 26,000 hectares across the hills, has been only Rs 1 crore.

“We sold cinchona barks worth Rs 5 crore last year and this time we have orders for Rs 10 crore,” said Rajesh Pandey, the district magistrate of Darjeeling.

Even the prices this year are almost double the value of last time’s. In 2007, the cinchona barks had brought Rs 34.50 per kg while this time it is being sold for Rs 76.76. The rates are directly proportionate to the quinine content in the bark. The figures quoted are for 4 per cent quinine content.

Apart from the cinchona barks, the government has also been able to sell 4,000 kg of ipecac—a medicinal plant — at the rate of Rs 1,750 per kg. “This is almost four times the normal selling price,” said a senior official of the plantations.

The stakeholders of the plantation — a largely public sector undertaking in the hills — attribute the reversal of fortunes to the attitude of senior government officials. “In the past, the officials concerned were lackadaisical in marketing the product,” said a source, well versed with the market dynamics of cinchona products.

Apart from the initiative of government officials, the fact that cinchona plantations in Indonesia are not doing up to the mark is another factor. “The global market is dominated by China where production cost is still very low. But the poor show by the Indonesian markets, coupled with the use of quinine in food products like water, has resulted in the increase of demand for our produce,” said a plantation official.

The change in the cinchona fortune has buoyed the hope of the government which is looking at making the plantation sustainable. “We are trying to tie up with the Lucknow-based Central Drug Research Institute and several food processing companies,” said Pandey.

Tenders for the sale of dioscorea, which is also grown on the plantation, will be called soon too. A derivative called diosgenin is extracted from dioscorea and the government is expected generate another Rs 1 crore from this sale.

Source: The Telegraph