Major Industries

Liquor industry

The liquor industry is a major source of excise revenue for the state. The state possesses a very efficient excise collection machinery. Excise (Abkari) Department is one of the single largest revenue earners of the state government.

The excise department offices along with required manpower are situated at Sikkim Distilleries Ltd. Rangpo, Yoksum Breweries Ltd. Melli and Warehouses at Gangtok, Rangpo, Melli and Jorethang.

The state excise act provides manufacture, possession, sale, transport, import and export of liquor, imposition of excise duty, etc, is collected by the state government on liquors under the provision of the Sikkim Excise Act '1992.

Tea Industry

Tea grown in Sikkim is famous by its brand name 'Temi Tea'. Temi Tea estate is located in Temi, south Sikkim and is one of the best tea producing tea estate in the country. It was established in the year 1969 with an estimated area of 435 acres. It employees a total number of 406 workers and 43 staff members. It produces about 100 MT tea annually. During this year a total revenue of Rs. 2.18 crores was credited to the state exchequer.Temi tea garden received All India Quality Award; from Tea Board of India for two consecutive years (i.e.1994 and 1995).

The orthodox variety of tea of Temi Tea is very rich in flavour and has high export potential. To its credit, Temi Tea fetches one of the highest prices at the Kolkata Tea auction. Under the assistance of Temi Tea Board, tea growers society like Sang-Martam Tea Growers' Cooperative society has started flourishing which will further increase the products. Efforts are underway to source direct buyers in foreign markets for Sikkim's tea and the field is open for investors interested in increasing Sikkim's tea production capabilities.

Sang - Martam Small Tea Growers:-

The Sang Martam Small Tea was established in 1998. This is a society where small farmers merge the land holdings together to start tea plantation. The total area of land under the cultivation of this society is around 75 acres. The society has a total of 140 members. Since the gestation period is long, tea plucking has started only recently; the green leaves are sent to Temi Tea factory for processing. However, a regular tea factory is being proposed. The tea produced is of orthodox variety.

Large Cardamom

Sikkim produces 80 percent of India's cardamom (large). The main export markets are Pakistan, Singapore and the Middle East. The large cardamom can hence be converted into value added product.

Large Cardamom is grown as an important spice crop in the state of Sikkim and West Bengal spread over about 26,437 hectares of land. The demand for large cardamom in the export market is bound to increase steadily. However, the internal consumption of cardamom is also increasing day-by-day.

Agriculture

Eighty percent of the population lives in rural Sikkim and agriculture plays a dominant role in the state economy. The total cultivable land is around 70,000 hectares and, the per capita availability of land is 0.18 hectares.

The main crops produced are rice, wheat, maize, large cardamom and ginger with potential for the commercialisation of large cardamom, ginger, fruits, tea, medicinal herbs and exportable flowers. There are large areas of fallow land available, which can be converted into productive farms for cash crops.

Food processing

The food processing industry in the state specializes in mandarin oranges, ginger, tea and cardamom. In terms of prospect, medicinal and aromatic herbs will face an ever-expanding market both nationally and internationally. The varieties of medicinal plants available in the state are taken care. Wool and silk reeling, weaving and processing, and rabbit farming, all these activities may be carried out at the farm level and they may be treated as the primary or secondary sources of livelihood. Apart from this, Fruits can be processed for value addition. Exotic flowers can be cultured for export, Honey and tea are other agro-based products that have high potential

Information Technology

Information Technology has been placed high on the state government's agenda. Several initiatives have been taken by the state government to boost Information Technology sector in the state.

Mission ss

In order to facilitate Information Technology sector in the state, government has identified certain missions

• Empowering citizens and making life easier for them through E-Governance.
  
• Facilitating income and employment generation in the private sector.
  
• Improving productivity in the Government Departments through Computerization.
  
• Introducing MIS and DSS in the Government.
• Training all Government employees in the use of computers and capacity building.
• Reducing the digital divide.

Initiatives being taken to meet the above objective

The following initiatives have been taken in right earnest to achieve the objectives outlined in the Mission Statement.

• A Department of Information Technology was established in 2000
  
• 40 Community Information Centers (CIC) have been set up across the remotest of regions in the Sikkim. These have been done with an aim to bring Information Technology to the grass root level of people. These centers have also been instrumental in taking Information Technology to the remotest part of Sikkim.
  
• A CIC is essentially a computer centre equipped with 6 computers and peripherals and a direct satellite link for Internet access. Community Information Centres would ultimately evolve into a single window delivery facility where citizens can pay their taxes, electricity bills, water and even get births and deaths registered online.
  
• The Department of IT hosts and maintains the official website of the Government of Sikkim www.sikkimgovt.org. The Website boasts of a rich repository of information useful for the government employees as well as the common masses, ranging from the latest news, employment opportunities in the government, tenders being floated by the government to the latest Promotions and transfers taking place in the government. The day-to-day prices of agricultural commodities like cardamoms etc can also be found in this site. Government gazettes, Sikkim government service rules,important Schemes being undertaken by the government are few of the facilities provided. Forms that are necessary on a daily basis for use by the people of Sikkim can also now be downloaded and submitted. Materials for Prevention and cures of common diseases can also be accessed in Nepali.
  
• Computer training is being imparted to government employees with an aim to train them all in the next three years. Career oriented courses like training in multimedia are being held by CRTI which is an autonomous body under the Information Technology Department.
• A software Cell has been set up in the IT Department to assist other Departments in the computerization. The cell also attends to any software problems being faced by the Departments, rectifying networking faults, co-ordinating implementation of various software packages and development and maintenance of departmental websites. Software packages are being for various Government Departments developed.
  
• CD ROM'S on prevention of AIDS, TB and other diseases have been developed in Nepali for viewing by the public at the CICs.
  
• All the Government Department in the state capital are in the process of being networked through optical fibre and RF.
  
• A Software Technology Park providing bandwidth facilities to potential investors has been functional for the last 6 months.
  
• The Land Records, Electrol Rolls, Registration of vehicles, driving licences, the treasury have been computerized