The tea board's dream of switching over from manual to electronic auction system has been stymied by sudden software glitches, which have made trade bodies reluctant to adopt the new mode of trading. | |
| Sources in Indian Tea Association (ITA), the apex body of plantation growers in the country, said that "we are not against e-auction per se. However, there had been some software glitches which were affecting the transition". |
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| Tea board had long back appointed well-known management consultancy firm accenture for preparing a road map for switching over to electronic auction to usher in greater transparency. |
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| Admitting this, a senior official of tea board said that there had been some minor problems with the software from time to time. The software, developed by a US-based it giant, would have to be made free from all glitches so that e-auction could take off in the country, industry sources said. |
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| However, the tea board official said that the problems which had cropped up had been tackled successfully. According to him, those bodies who did not want e-auction were raising these issues in order to delay the progress. |
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| Besides ITA, another important trade body, Tea Association of India (TAI), had already made a fervent appeal to the commerce ministry in not making e-auction mandatory. |
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| According to TAI, prices fetched at the e-auction were marginally lower than the manual auction. |
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| On an experimental basis, tea board had already started e-auction in all the six centres of Kolkata, Guwahati, Siliguri, Coonoor, Coimbatore and Cochin. |
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| The tea board official said that at present, ten per cent of the produce was being routed through the e-auction mode,adding that this proportion would be stepped up in phases. |
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| From 10 per cent, the proposition would be increased to 20 per cent, 40 per cent, 80 per cent, and finally to 100 per cent. |
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| The official said that infrastructural facilities would have to be developed for full-fledged electronic auctioning. |
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| Reacting to the trade bodies opinion, the official said that this is basically a change management issue. |
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| The entire transition was being overlooked by a committee consisting of buyers, sellers and brokers. |
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