Ooty: Crisis in the tea trade has deepened further in the very beginning of the GST regime as major corporate buyers boycotted tea auction at Coonoor on Thursday.
As the stagnation of tea looms large with the boycott of buyers, local tea trading community has written to the Union government to bail out tea trade from the present crisis as it would ultimately affect the livelihood and economy of the near one lakh small tea growers (STG) in Nilgiris.
On Thursday it was really a rude shock for tea traders, tea manufacturers and STG as major buyers of Nilgiri tea failed to take part in the first tea auction in the GST regime. Of course, it instantly has jolted the confidence of the tea community here.
K. Dhananjayan, executive committee member of Coonoor Tea Traders Association (CTTA), stated that CTTA has been following the seller’s bill model for the past one decade. All major buyers like HUL, TGBL and exporters have been operating on this model without any issue.
Most of the major buyers have boycotted the first sale under the GST regime. This decision would adversely affect the major stakeholders, namely one lakh STG in Nilgiris who are already suffering due to the low tea prices.
“As stakeholders in the industry, we the manufacturers have taken all necessary steps to migrate to the GST regime and made sure that there is no disruption to the tea auction”, Dhananjayan noted.
Meanwhile, Aravenu Kumar, an STG, said that the present crisis seems to be a ploy to exert pressure on the government on GST by buyers. If it is so, the government should involve State Trading Corporation in the tea auction to become the primary buyer of all the tea in the tea auction centres to make them sell to other buyers.
MoU to extract pricey tea catechins
INDCOSERVE at Coonoor, the apex body of Industrial Co-op tea factories, has signed an MoU with M/s CSIR-IHBT (Institute of Himalayan Bioresource Technology), for extracting Catechins from tea leaves, on transfer of technology basis, initially at Indco factory at Kaikatty near here and later at Mahalinga Indco factory near Adigaratti.
Stating this T. Baskara Pandian, the Collector-in-charge of Nilgiris said that CSIR-IHBT is actively engaged in developing novel value added tea products such as tea concentrates, catechins and related products. It is in possession of process of extracting catechins using green solvents.
“Tea Catechins” are high-value antioxidants having numerous health benefits. Extraction of 1kg of catechin needs 40 to 50 kgs of fresh tea leaves and fetches Rs 12,000 to Rs 15,000 per kilogram internationally.
