Bring innovation to attract more buyers Tea Board chairman tells Guwahati auction centre

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    Guwahati, Sep 25 (PTI) Tea Board Chairman Prabhat
Bezbaruah called for innovation in the auctioning system to
attract more buyers to the Guwahati Tea Auction Centre (GTAC)
which completed 50 years of its operations on Friday.
    There is enough scope for innovation, and auction
organisers can bring in modification within the procedure
of the GTAC so that it can survive for another fifty years,
Bezbaruah said at a Webtalk organised on the occasion of the
centre's golden jubilee anniversary celebrations.
    "The centre enjoys a locational advantage and it
should now convert this into a transactional advantage. This
is a business organisation which is involved in the sale of
tea, and it should innovate regularly to attract more buyers,"
he said.
    As an initiative, ex-factory auctions can be organised
from satellite warehouse points instead of tea being brought
to Guwahati for sale, Bezbaruah said.
    He, however, admitted that not much innovation had
taken place in the tea industry.
    "E-auction has been introduced in the GTAC but it is
just a replica of the manual transaction, and there is a need
for introducing and promoting far-reaching modifications which
will fetch better prices," he said.
    There has been a rise in prices of tea but this is
mainly due to a shortfall in crop production, he said, adding
that the board is urging planters to produce as much tea as
the market needs, Bezbaruah said.
    The GTAC is the only auction centre which is
indirectly controlled by the government, he said.
    "It was started as an initiative of the state
government with the support of the stakeholders of the tea
industry. The government has a role in holding its hand and
taking it forward," the Tea Board chairman said.
    On the occasion, GTAC Chairman K K Dwivedi said the
tea industry was facing exceptional challenges with production
getting affected, and the Assam government has come forward to
help it.
    The state government granted agricultural income tax
holiday for three years along with other incentives to the tea
industry, he said.
    "The GTAC as an institution has come a long way in the
last 50 years, emerging as the largest in the country and the
second-largest in the world. But we have to redefine our goals
for the future by bringing in structural, procedural and
functional changes," he said.
    Dwivedi urged sellers to eliminate poor quality tea
and bring in new ideas like sale of packets of tea.
    He said that there are plans to mark the golden
jubilee of the GTAC by setting up a tea museum, organising an
international tea festival, publishing a coffee table book
among others.
    The first auction at the GTAC was held on September 25
in 1970.
    GTAC Golden Jubilee Working Committee chairman
Chiranjit Chaliha said it had plans to host sporting events
during March or April and a programme on Friday but deferred
all these in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
    GTAC secretary P Dutta said the celebrations had
started in September last year when the authorities organised
a manual auction for its stakeholders to revisit the
memories. PTI DG
BDC BDC

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)