With tea council in place, trade hopes for higher shipments

Exporters of quality teas from South India are expecting higher shipment in the next two years as the newly-formed Tea Council of South India (TCSI) will rid the trade of sub-standard teas.

Tea Board Chairman, who is also the Licensing Authority, has constituted the TCSI with Board’s Executive Director at Coonoor as the Chairman and N. Dharmaraj, U. Saraf, D. Hegde and Mathew C. George as members. Its tenure is two years.

Gamut of services

The TCSI has jurisdiction over tea meant for export through the ports of Kochi, Tuticorin, ICD Coimbatore, Mumbai and Goa besides airports in the South from where tea is exported.

It also has jurisdiction on tea warehouses located in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, AP, Goa and Maharashtra.

The TCSI will monitor tea exported from South, tea and tea waste imported and then exported and the storage facilities for export teas.

It may cause random inspections. It may also rate exporters and export houses.

It is required to submit to the Tea Board Chairman its report every month.

Trade welcomes

“This is a welcome initiative because recently, there had been instances of lowering the image of South India’s tea quality when some exporters shipped complied with the request of some importers for shipping low-quality teas at cheap prices. To assure the exporters of the fact that India’s teas are second to none, the TCSI is required because it will introduce institutionalised mandatory checking of quality of teas prior to shipment. The council will immensely help to boost exports of South Indian quality teas,”, TCSI member Hegde told Business Line .

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