GUWAHATI, June 10 � The Nilgiri Bought Leaf Tea Manufacturers� Association (NBLTMA) has urged the Tea Board of India to take up the generic promotion of tea in the domestic market vigorously, said Ramseh M Bhojarajan, president of the NBLTMA. He was speaking to this correspondent here today. Bhojarajan and three other members of the NBLTMA were in the State for the past four days in connection with the 16 th biennial general meeting of the North Eastern Tea Association (NETA), which was held at Golaghat recently.
Ramesh, who was speaking in presence of P Sajeev, Prakash Raju Bettan and S Kannappan of the NBLTMA, further said that the NBLTMA is also of the opinion that the practice of selling produce through auction centres results in better competitions for better price realisation. This helps in maintaining transparency and thus in paying fair price to the small tea growers (STGs) for green leaves, Ramesh said.
Sunil Goyal, chairman of Coonoor Tea Trade Association (CTTA) who also accompanied the NBLTMA members to Assam, maintained that around 95 per cent of the produce of the Nilgiri bought leaf factories (BLFs) is sold through the Coonoor Tea Auction Centre (CTAC) run by the CTTA.
On the issue of making tea the national drink of India, Ramesh said that their organisation would soon take up the issue with the Union Government. The NBLTMA has already taken up the issue of declaring tea as the state drink of Tamil Nadu with the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, he said.
