Tea Board to bring small growers under single platform

The new e-auction platform will giver better return for the growers

The Tea Board of India is planning to integrate small growers by formulating a single auction platform to facilitate the sale of produce.

R Ambalavanan, executive director of Tea board, functioning under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, said the new platform would be ready in 3-4 months and would be a pan-India auctioning system.

The platform would enable small tea growers from six societies in Coonor, Coimbatore, Kochi, Kolkata, Guwahati and Siliguri (Darjeeling), besides allowing them access to a wide set of buyers and better price realisation.

According to him, these six societies last year produced and sold about a billion kilos of tea. Of the 1.2 billion kg of tea, around 50 per cent was sold through e-auctioning. However, the Tea board wants to raise this to 60-70 per cent, he added.

“We are trying to educate all small farmers about the benefits of such systems,” said Ambalavanan, who added, “convincing  small growers to have a uniform policy, bid size, base amount, lot size were the key challenges.”

The pan-India auction project is being funded by the board, with the technical assistance from NSE.IT in Mumbai.

Earlier, speaking at the launch function of new brand from the house of Glendale Estate, Ambalavanan urged tea exporters to focus on the domestic market rather than exports.

“There is a good demand in the domestic market and consumers are looking for quality tea. I urge the tea estate owners to cater to the rising domestic demand and the demand for green tea was particularly increasing in the country,” he said.

Commenting on the production, he said, in north India it was down by around 2-3 per cent, which will be covered in the next 2-3 months. In the south, however, production levels were on the higher side due to supportive climate conditions and other reasons.