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The Tobacco Board plans to increase auction platforms and introduce e-auctions in Karnataka from the crop year 2012-13 starting September.
“The Board at its meeting in Bangalore has taken the decision to introduce electronic auctions in all 11 auction platforms in Karnataka from this crop year and also increase auction platforms,” Mr G. Kamala Vardhana Rao, Chairman, told Business Line . “Introduction of e-auction is to bring in transparency in transactions and will be operational from September.”
The Board has decided to introduce e-auctions in all platforms in Andhra Pradesh as well.
For installing e-auction infrastructure, IT major NIIT has been roped in to provide software solutions and Karnataka State Electronics Development Corporation Ltd (Keonics) will prepare a detail project report to choose a hardware vendor.
Mr Rao said: “The Board has budgeted Rs 30-crore expenditure to be utilised over six years to modernise and maintain all the auction platforms in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.”
Shorter auction days
Keeping growers' interest in mind, the Board has planned to shorten the number of auction days by opening more auction platforms.
“Cured tobacco leaves should be marketed within two months, otherwise it deteriorates as days go by,” Mr Rao explained. “As a solution to this, the Board took a decision to open two more auction platforms in Karnataka.”
The new platforms are to come up at Kamplapura and HD Kote in Mysore district.
According to Mr Rao, “Currently 10 to 11 million kg is being marketed per auction platform and is taking lot of time. Now with two more platforms in Karnataka, we plan to bring it down to 7 to 8 million kg per platform and market the entire Karnataka tobacco crop within two months.”
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