An agreement has been signed between the Tea Board of India and the subsidiary of the National Stock Exchange, named NSE.IT on Thursday for implementing electronic tea auction in the country by the end of the year of 2008. The Minister of State for Commerce Mr. Jairam Ramesh has expressed his views on the agreement signing and said that India is going to be the first country in the world to have an electronic auction in tea.
According to Mr. Ramesh, they would taste the software at all the six auction centres in Kolkata, Guwahati, Siliguri, Coonoor, Kochi and Coimbatore, in the initial period and they will install it in these centers after the tasting is over. he said that the introduction of electronic auction is going to provide a better price discovery and will also benefit all the stakeholders in the tea industry.
The sources from the industry have informed that the Tea Board did make an attempt to introduce electronic auction in the year if 2004, however, that could not be implemented due to some deficiencies in the software. Informing that they are not going to make the implementation of e-auction mandatory, Mr. Ramesh said, "We would make the system conducive to all the stakeholder s so that they could participate". He further said that the Indian government has sanctioned an amount of Rs 213 crore for the tea industry in the recent past and they are thinking of spending this amount over a period of five years.
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| Posted : 3/21/2008 |
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