Tea Board should continue to fund auction system: CTTA

Calcutta Tea Traders' Association (CTTA) on Friday said that Tea Board should

continue to fund the auctioning system in six centres in the country till an alternative mechanism is put in place.

Nearly 600 million kg of tea is being handled annually in the six auction centres at present, CTTA secrtary J

Kalyansundaram said. "These centres use the NSE.IT platform which is

completely funded by Tea Board. If the board decides to stop funding the auctioning system, there will be a sudden vacuum

which the tea industry cannot afford to have," Kalyansundaram told PTI.

CTTA oversees the auctioning system in the Kolkata centre.

Recently, Tea Board chairman P K Bezbaruah said that the government should stop funding the auctions and private

parties with sound financial capabilities should be encouraged to come forward.

"The operating expenses of the auctions are now borne by the Tea Board. It charges two paise per kg of tea sold from

the buyers, brokers and sellers to recover a part of the cost," Kalyansundaram said.

He said there is no question of going back to the manual auction system.

"The existing platform is functioning properly and should not be shut down. If the board withdraws its financial

support, the industry has to come forward. Things should not come to such a situation," Kalyansundaram said.

The NSE.IT platform is running at the Kolkata, Guwahati, Siliguri, Cochin, Coonoor and Coimbatore auction

centres. The only private platform floated by mjunction at

Jorhat in Assam is yet to start functioning, he said. "Currently, at least 48 sales per year take place at

each of the auction centre," he added.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)