Tea it is sometimes served with biscuits to be dipped in the tea and eaten before consuming the tea. More often than not, it is drunk in "doses" of small cups (referred to as "Cutting" chai if sold at street tea vendors) rather than one large cup. On 21 April 2012, the Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission (India), Montek Singh Ahluwalia, said tea would be declared as national drink by April 2013. The move is expected to boost the tea industry in the country. Speaking on the occasion, Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said a special package for the tea industry
Tea production in Sri Lanka biological control (a parasitic wasp, "Macrosentus homonae") to suppress the Tea Tortrix caterpillar, which had threatened the tea crop. In 1941 the first Ceylonese tea broking house, M/s Pieris & Abeywardena, was established, and in 1944 the Ceylon Estate Employers' Federation was founded. On October 1, 1951, an export duty on tea was introduced and in 1955 the first clonal tea fields began cultivation. In 1958, the State Plantations Corporation was established, and on June 1, 1959, Ad Valorem Tax was introduced for teas sold at the Colombo auctions. By the 1960s, Sri Lanka's total tea production and exports exceeded