Following a request from six north Bengal tea gardens for advancing the dates for resumption of plucking operations, an expert committee of the Tea Board rejected their plea after inspection, an official said on Wednesday.
The board had imposed mandatory closure of tea leaf plucking or harvesting operations in West Bengal, Bihar, Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand from mid - December.
Subsequently, it had announced February 11 for West Bengal and Bihar and February 28 for the other states to resume plucking operations.
Tea gardens Nuxalbari Tea Co, Oodlabari, Aryaman, Mainak Hill, Kumarika and Namring Tea Estate had requested for advancing the dates for resumption of plucking operations citing availability of fresh leaves in their gardens.
The board referred the matter to the committee of experts who were asked to "verify such first flush by field inspections".
"Experts have recently inspected the representing gardens and found that fine leaf count was below 25.
It should ideally be over 60.
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