Tea board intervenes, mandates ballometric method to ensure transparency in leaf trade
Both the tea manufacturers and green leaf suppliers will have to sign the register, which will be inspected by the Board regularly.
Guwahati, Dec 11: Noting that tea manufacturers are not paying remunerative prices for green leaf to small growers, the Tea Board has issued a set of directives to ensure transparency and compliance in the transactions.
The Board has directed every registered manufacturer engaged in purchasing tea leaf to maintain a separate register giving details of the green leaf suppliers with address, quantity of leaf purchased on daily basis with corresponding fine leaf count.
The fine leaf count will have to be done following the ‘ballometric’ method in the presence of the green leaf supplier. The ballometric method is a technique developed by the Tea Research Association (TRA) to measure the percentage of fine leaves (buds and young leaves) in a plucked tea harvest.
Manufacturers have been claiming that low prices of green leaf were due to poor quality – a claim rubbished by small tea growers.
Both the tea manufacturers and green leaf suppliers will have to sign the register, which will be inspected by the Board regularly.
Errant manufacturing units will face action, the Board warned, maintaining that low prices were causing hardship to the small tea growers and also disturbing the supply chain and causing damage to the tea trade.
Green leaf prices had dropped to around Rs 11 at many places this year, sparking protests from small tea growers who alleged that the government and Tea Board had failed to resolve the crisis.
By
Staff Reporter