Byapaar.com – The Indian Business Blog

What a shame! We are long into 21st century and information and networking super highway. Today, virtually each and everything is being done through digital media and mechanism. But for so long, auctioning of tea in India was being held in the age old method of manual outcry system. This resulted in many problems that come along with the old method like incoherent price increments at different centers, different lot sizes, price discovery and audit trail and so on. So a Tea Board commission was constituted and it recommended overhauling the old system and standardizing the auctioning process across auction centers.
Subsequently, the Tea Board sought help from the National Stock Exchange (NSE). The Information Technology (IT) arm of NSE started developing customized software for e-auctioning. Finally, the Tea Board of India has announced on 30th August that auctioning of tea in the country will go online in coming November. Actually, it was supposed to go operational in October, but the launch had to be delayed due to Puja (festival) Vacation. Executives of the board expects the IT solution will bring in a common platform for all auction centers which are now situated in Siliguri, Guwahat, Kochi and Jalpaiguri. The software is also expected to smoothen and expedite the process of future trading of tea besides new price discoveries, better transparency, standard contract descriptor, common and inform lot size, market timings, uniform price increments and automatic matching and audit trail. The stakeholders in public auctions will now be able to do their business in much easier and organized manners through this e-auctioning system. But the program is still under beta and as Ms. Roshni Sen, Tea Board deputy chairperson said

“Things are going on well. We will be carrying out software and system testing by September. And the –e-auctioning of tea will commence from November.”

For the record India is one of the largest tea producing countries in the world and total production for the year 2008 is expected to touch 962 million kilograms.