Sagar Mehta. | Photo Credit: Special arrangement
GUWAHATI
An association of tea producers has named two nonagenarians for its first lifetime achievement awards.
The awards are scheduled to be conferred upon 96-year-old Sagar Mehta and 93-year-old Apurba Kumar Barooah at the ‘Chairman’s Dinner’ in eastern Assam’s Golaghat on February 8, 2025. The dinner is a biennial event of the North Eastern Tea Association (NETA).
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Tea Exemplar award would be conferred upon Mr. Mehta for his exemplary contribution to the tea industry and the social fabric of Assam, while the Social Statesman award would be presented to Mr. Barooah for providing visionary leadership for the betterment of society.
NETA chairman, Ajay Dhandharia said the two are considered legends for their extraordinary achievements, commitment and dedication to the tea industry in Assam.
“The chairman’s dinner is expected to be a good gathering of tea producers, buyers, auctioneers, small tea growers, and tea scientists,” he said.
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“NETA is honoured and privileged to confer lifetime achievement awards to two great personalities. Their contributions shall continue to motivate generations to come and shall always be remembered with great honour and dignity,” NETA advisor Bidyananda Barkakoty said.
In 2017, the association conferred the title of Tea Doyen to planter-philanthropist Hemendra Prasad Barooah posthumously. “Our awards are not time-bound. We will confer these awards only if we find someone eligible,” Mr. Barkakoty said.
Established in 1981, the NETA is headquartered in Golaghat and has 179 member tea companies in Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, and Nagaland. They account for more than 150 million kilogram of processed tea annually, about 20% of Assam’s total production.
Oldest tea garden executive Mr. Mehta, India’s oldest serving tea garden executive, insisted that he is in no mood to hang up his boots. A labour management specialist from Kolkata’s All India Institute of Personnel Management, he was among the first batch of Indian officers recruited by the British in the tea industry.
He joined the Gandhapara Tea Estate in the Dooars region of West Bengal in 1954 and won the Tea Board of India’s top recognition for the growth of tea in the Dooars in 1965.
He is currently the president of the Badulipar Tea Company, whose Koomtai Tea Estate in the Golaghat district he helped become one of the prime tea gardens of Assam. He visits the company’s tea gardens regularly and plays golf whenever he gets some time off.
A pioneer of Assam’s cooperative movement seven decades ago, Mr. Barooah made a mark as a tea planter, poet and writer. He founded Golaghat’s first weekly newspaper – Saptahik Dhansiri – and also started Tea News, a one-of-a-kind monthly magazine dedicated to the achievements, concerns and hopes of the State’s tea industry.
He has also written a handbook in Assamese for small tea growers of Assam to encourage more and more youth to engage with the industry. He turned a part of his house into a reference library for the residents of Golaghat.
Published - February 07, 2025 02:03 pm IST
