Abstract:
Sri Lanka is the fourth-largest tea producer in the world. In the Sri Lankan economy, tea plays a
key role contributing 2% to the GDP and foreign exchange earnings. The tea industry consists of
large-scale estates managed by Regional Plantation Companies (RPC) and tea small-holders. The
tea industry's contribution to the country’s economy is said to be flawed. Among many problems
the industry faces, there is a significant variation among the estate performances even under the
same management. Also, very limited research studies have been conducted to evaluate the
performance of tea estate in Sri Lanka. Thus, this study aimed at developing a performance index
to evaluate the performance of selected tea estates in the upcountry region of Sri Lanka. It
further investigated the factors associated with the enhancement of the performance of estates.
An analytical and descriptive type study focusing on the qualitative approach were conducted
with an open-ended and interview-type questionnaire combining the quantitative method.
Eleven variables were identified as the most important in performance evaluation through
direct interviews with five plantation experts selected purposely. Using the selected variable and
the weighted values assigned for each variable an index was formulated as Tea Estate
Performance Index (TEPI). Five-year average data (2013-2018) of each variable for all seven
estates were collected and the average values were calculated. The values were normalized to
take them into the same scale. Results show that Estate “1” has shown an excellent performance
in labour out turn (V5), percentage of made tea out-turn (V6), percentage of main grades (V7),
and cost of production (V10). Even though, the estate has done fairly good in many variables, the
percentage of vegetatively propagated plants (V1), plucker intake in the estate (V3), and output
per factory worker (V9) showed low values. The Estate “2” has shown good performances
according to the percentage of vegetative propagation of plants (V1) and percentage of labour
out turn (V5), it has poor performance in the percentage of made tea out turn (V6), percentage
of main grades (V7), output per factory worker (V9), cost of production (V10) and profit per ha
(V11). Considering all the variables, it is observed that Estate “1” has ranked number one in
selected sample, the Estate “2” has ranked seven in the upcountry region. In conclusion,
proposed index can be used to evaluate and compare the performance of tea estates and the
management can take strategic management decisions accordingly to improve estate
productivity.
