Stage set for tea auction centre to reopen

TT, 26 Sep 2018, Jalpaiguri: The district administration on Tuesday approved a new committee that would run the North Bengal Tea Auction Centre here and carry out financial transactions in banks.

For the past three years, the auction centre has been closed with no tea being routed through it for sale.

On Tuesday, a meeting was held where Shilpa Gourisaria, the district magistrate, approved the new committee that would be headed by her, ex-officio, as the chairperson. The committee would have Amritangshu Chakraborty, the principal advisor to the Indian Tea Planters' Association, as the new secretary, and Purajit Bakshi Gupta as the vice-chairman.

"We have approved the new committee and also entitled the members to carry out financial transactions in banks. The administration will extend all necessary help to resume tea auction at the centre. On September 27, a meeting would be held on the centre where officials of the Tea Board of India and stakeholders of tea industry would be present," said the DM.

The auction centre has been closed since September 15, 2015, due to non-inflow of tea. Also, in last September, N.K. Basu, the immediate past secretary, died. As he was one of the authorised signatories, salaries of three employees at the centre could not be provided as other members could not draw money from the banks.

"Due to absence of the secretary and a full-fledged committee, we had been facing some other technical problems in running the centre. Now that the signatories have been changed and the new committee has been formed with a secretary, it would largely help us expedite the process of resuming activities at the centre," Bakshi Gupta, the vice-chairman, said.

Some executive members of the committee said discussions to bring in tea for auction at the centre would be held after the Durga Puja.

"Tea companies are now busy in disbursing bonus. The Puja season has already started. We have planned to hold talks after the holidays," said Ravi Agarwal, a member of the executive committee..