From next month, a registered tea buyer at Kochi can participate in the e-auction of Darjeeling tea, thanks to the new unified and linked system to be introduced by the Tea Board.
E-auction of tea will no more restrict buyers of one centre and make them go in for multiple registrations. Inaugurating the pan-India auction system, Rita Teaotia, Union Commerce Secretary, said on Tuesday that the integrated digitised system would bring in ease of doing bulk trading in different types of teas across the country.
From June 22, registered buyers of any of the existing seven e-auction centres of the Tea Board will be able to transact at all other centres, Tea Board Chairman Santosh Sarangi said.
Apart from single registration of buyers, the new system will have uniform electronic auction rules for trade participants at Kolkata, Siliguri, Guwahati, Jalpaiguri, Coonoor, Kochi and Coimbatore centres.
The system will also introduce e-auction for Daljeeling tea for the first time. It will generate delivery orders after actual realisation of payments. Bank of India will provide payment gateway services for the platform.
The maximum catalogue printing time for the items to be auctioned has been fixed at 15 days for April and May. For the other months, it shall be 19 days. The system can process transactions of 5-10 lots a minute.
The aim of the system is to facilitate better price discovery and higher trading volumes on the digitised platform. “The new system could prove to be a turning point for tea auctioning in India, which began in 1861 in this city,” Teaotia said.