Volume, price perk up at Coonoor tea auction

Improvement in both the volume sold and the price fetched was visible at the first auction held by Coonoor Tea Trade Association (CTTA) after the Tea Board putting on hold its pan-India post settlement module for four weeks effective from October 18.

In the five auctions where this module was in force from September 12, buyers, sellers and brokers complained of many issues relating to non-receipt of payment by sellers, inability of brokers to use the software for money transfers and failure of the system to generate delivery orders which meant buyers not getting delivery of the tea they had bought and paid for.

After the meeting held in Kolkata on Monday by Tea Board Chairman with the chairmen of all tea trade Associations, the Board’s Controller of Licensing Rajanigandha Seal Naskar had issued a communication to all these Associations to carry out the post-auction settlement process for sales happening after October 18 on the same lines as followed till Sept 12.

The first such auction of CTTA ended today which was, in effect, Sale No: 41. Buyers had shown resentment in last week’s auction resulting in 37 per cent of the offer remaining unsold. But, this week, they participated with enthusiasm resulting in 94 per cent of the offer being absorbed. This competitive demand helped the average price to rise to ₹98.76 a kg from last week’s ₹97.27.

Of this, in the Leaf Tea auction, 93.38 per cent of the offer was sold against 75.95 per cent last week. The average price rose to ₹98.40 a kg from ₹96.83.

In the Dust Tea auction, 94.40 per cent of the offer was sold against last week’s 48.67 per cent. The average price rose to ₹99.50 a kg from ₹98.71.

The combined value of the dust and leaf tea sold this week rose to ₹10.95 crore from last week’s ₹9.28 crore. This increase of ₹1.67 crore in just a week marked a growth of 18 per cent.