By IANS
Kolkata : The Tea Board of India Thursday inked an agreement with the National Stock Exchange’s (NSE) IT subsidiary, NSE-IT, to launch an e-auctioning system for the tea industry in India.
“The e-auction service will be operational by November 2008. The new system would be transparent and be developed by NSE-IT,” union Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh told a press conference here Thursday.
He said the service would ensure reduced payment period and better-price-discovery mechanism for the tea industry in India.
“The union government is not mooting any law for making e-auction mandatory in the tea industry. The focus would be given to make this new system more viable and attractive for the buyers and sellers so that it could bring about bulk of the nation’s tea produce to the e-auction route,” he said.
Ramesh added that about 95 percent of the tea produced in Sri Lanka and Kenya came through the auction route compared to India’s only 45 percent.
“The e-auction platform would definitely increase the volume of tea output across the country,” he said.
In 2007, the tea output fell marginally to 944.70 million kg from 956 million kg a year ago.
Appealing to all the stakeholders to make the new e-auction drive successful, he said a similar system would also be introduced shortly in the tobacco industry.
“The online auction service has been launched to benefit every section of the industry,” the minister said.