GUWAHATI, May 4 ? Chairman of Assam Tea Planters? Association (ATPA), O P Chokhani has called for radical change in tea pricing system allowing the producers to fix the prices of their product instead of the buyers. Addressing the 65th annual general meeting of the ATPA at Gymkhana Club, Jorhat yesterday, Sri Chokhani pointed out the wide difference between the price paid by consumers in retail market and the price received by the producers. He said in the current practice although consumers were being forced to pay more for their cup of tea, traders were denying reasonable prices to the producers.
?Manufacturers and producers of all other consumable items, fix their selling price, but in case of tea, price is determined by buyers. This system needs to be changed. The producers should be able to fix price for their product,? he said adding bulk of the teas are still sold through auction centres, and even in private sales auction rates are taken as bench mark, so, if a minimum floor price can be fixed, it will not only help the industry in getting reasonable price for their tea but also help small tea growers to realise better price for their green leaves. He called upon the CCPA to take up the issue with Tea Board.Sri Chokhani stated that the present crisis in the tea industry was being attributed to high cost of production, over supply of CTC teas, decline in export and import. However, as the producers are getting unremunerative prices but consumers are still paying the same price, if not more, than what they were paying three years back. ?This suggests our domestic market is still very strong but packeters and traders are making good profit at the cost of both producers and consumers.?
Regarding drop in volume of tea export from the country during last few years, the ATPA chairman attributed it to wrong production mix and inability of the industry to compete with other producing countries due to high cost of production. He also said export suffered due to declining quality of tea and wrong deed of some exporters. He pointed out that last Indian tea industry had lost the market in Libya completely due to supply of inferior quality tea by one of the exporters. ?This also hampered our export of other agricultural products to Libya,? he added. The ATPA chairman stated that in the present crisis situation, the Industry must rethink its labour management and employment policy and called for linking employment to the need only.
Stating that every year flood creates havoc and causes irreparable losses to the tea industry in the State which have lost hundreds of hectares of prime land due to flood and erosion. He demanded that Central government must declare flood in Assam as a national problem and take immediate steps to control the yearly menace.