GUWAHATI, Jan 23 ? The Tea Marketing Control Order (TMCO), 2003, which is expected to change the face of tea trading through registered tea auction centres in the country, has not gone down well with the tea buyers in the country. The tea buyers are finding the TMCO, 2003 provisions not friendly to their interests and have registered protests. The Guwahati Tea Auction Buyers? Association (GTABA) has registered their protest against implementation of the TMCO, 2003 and submitted a memorandum to the chairman of the Guwahati Tea Auction Centre (GTAC).
A copy of the memorandum has also been sent to the Union Minister for Department of Development of North Eastern Region (DONER), Arun Shourie. The GTABA has termed the TMCO, 2003 ultravires of the Tea Act, 1953 and contradictory to the present Government of India?s policy of decontrolling and delicensing. The buyers have objected to the provision of the TMCO, 2003 defining merchant packeteers of tea as manufacturers. The new TMCO invokes registration of buyers on payment of ?irrational? registration fee which the buyers have found unjustified. The buyers have also objected to the mechanism of registration according to which even a grocery shop owner buying tea from a tea packeteer in non-tea producing zone of the country will also be required to get registered under the provisions of the TMCO, 2003.
The tea buyers have also found the TMCO, 2003 provision asking them to make specified percentage of their total purchase at the registered tea auction centres not practical on the ground that while tea manufacturers have definite quantity of tea at their disposal for which a percentage may be specified for sale through registered auction centre but in case of buyers there may not be sufficient orders from their clients with them for tea purchase at the auction to meet such specified percentage as defined by the TMCO, 2003.
The buyers have also objected to the provision of the TMCO, 2003 empowering the Tea Board with power to prosecute, search or seizure. The buyers of the view that implementation of the TMCO, 2003 will result in huge paper work at the point of buyers as well as Tea Board which may lead to corruption at all levels.
The buyers of the opinion that the TMCO, 2003 provisions give ample arbitrary power to concerned authorities including power of issuing directives to the individual buyers and suggested that directives, if any, should be on the trade as a whole or for a class traders and not for an individual trader. The buyers? body while registering their protest against the new TMCO has submitted that the TMCO-2003 will wipe out small and medium traders from the tea traders from the tea trade while only big players will be benefited in respect of monopolising the tea trade.