outlookindia.com 2021-06-04T14:30:03+05:30 At 92, Sagar Datt Mehta has probably seen everything life can throw at him. But even a veteran like him doesn’t remember facing the kind of prolonged drought that has dealt a debilitating blow to the Assam tea industry. And that too in the midst of a crippling pandemic. “It is really bad…very, very bad,” says Mehta, president of Badulipar Ltd, which owns the Koomtai Tea Estate in Golaghat district. Mehta is probably the world’s longest-serving executive in the industry, having come in contact with the tea bushes for the first time in 1954 in Assam. “We have badly fallen behind,” he adds.