Guwahati: The Comptroller and Auditor General of India said the absence of any specific strategy means most small tea growers continue to remain outside the ambit of regulations of the Tea Board.
This was mentioned in the Performance Audit Report No. 8 of 2023 of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India on the ‘Role of Tea Board India in development of tea in India’ presented in the current session of the Parliament.
The Audit covered the period from 2016-17 to 2020-21. The report examined the impact of the activities undertaken by Tea Board India towards its regulatory, developmental, research, market promotion and financial management aspects to ensure that the efforts undertaken by the Board were adequate and effective towards the execution of regulatory functions, increasing production and productivity of tea in India, supporting tea research activities, the promotion of Indian tea in domestic and overseas markets as well as effective financial management.
“Inspection for monitoring the activities of various stakeholders was found to be inadequate and non-transparent. Further, an internal procedure in the Tea Board to collect tea samples from factories for testing in laboratories was inadequate to ensure that the quality of tea complied with the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India norms. Moreover, the Tea Board failed to encourage the tea manufacturers to sell mandatory 50 per cent of tea production through e-auction. Thus, the regulatory function of the Tea Board was inadequate and the Board failed to effectively exercise its role as a Regulator of Tea in India,” it said.
The Tea Board had started the process of identification of small tea growers by issuing them ID cards with QR codes from 2017-18 so that they come under the purview of registration.
The Audit observed that QR code-based identity cards had been issued only to 1,37,800 out of 2,22,746 identified small growers, which account for 62 per cent of the total identified small tea growers. QR code-based cards have not been issued to any of the small tea growers in Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur and the percentage of small tea growers not registered in Meghalaya, Tripura and Uttarakhand was as high as 69 per cent, 71 per cent and 77 per cent respectively.
It found that 84,946 small tea growers constituting about 38 per cent of the total small tea growers were continuing tea cultivation, as on 31 March 2021, without the requisite permissions of the Tea Board under the provisions of the Tea Act, 1953.
The reasons for the non-issuance of QR code-based cards were the non-availability of land details, cultivation of tea, incomplete application /non-receipt of application fees etc.
On the deficiencies in the process of registration of small tea growers for tea plantation, it found the process of granting planting permission to the small tea growers was not in accordance with the provisions as contained in Tea Rules, 1954 as necessary documents were not furnished by the small tea growers while applying for permission for plantation of tea. “Moreover, in the absence of verified information of small tea growers, formulation of any scheme for development of the small tea growers would not be able to deliver the desired results,” the CAG report said.
On the e-auction system which was set up to create an efficient marketplace for trading Indian tea and to reach out to a wide range of buyers for fair realisation of the price of tea, it found out tea sold through the e-auction system was only 42 per cent to 44 per cent of the total tea produced in the country.
It was further mandated as per paragraph 21 of the Tea Marketing Control Order (TMCO), 2003 (as amended in 2015) that every registered tea manufacturer, should, on and from the date of commencement of the notification, sell not less than 50 per cent of the total tea manufactured in a calendar year through public tea auctions in India.
“Thus, the Tea Board could not achieve the minimum threshold limit of 50 per cent in any of the five years,” the report said.
The Audit found that the number of buyers who participated in the e-auction but did not purchase tea ranged between 61 per cent and 68 per cent.
Dear Reader,
Every day, our team at EastMojo travels through rain, rough roads, and remote hills to bring you stories that matter – stories from your town, your people, your Northeast.
We do this because we believe in truthful, independent journalism. No big corporate backing, no government pressure – just honest reporting by local journalists who live and breathe the same air you do.
But to keep doing this work, we need you. Your small contribution helps us pay our reporters fairly, reach places others ignore, and keep asking the tough questions.
If you believe the Northeast deserves its own fearless voice, stand with us.
Support independent journalism. Be a Member.
Thank you,
Karma Paljor
Editor-in-Chief, eastmojo.com
“Thus, the majority of participants did not purchase tea from e-auctions. As such, the stipulation of the Tea Marketing Control Order to sell not less than 50 per cent of the total tea manufactured in a calendar year through public tea auctions could not be achieved and the purpose of e-auction to realise the fair price of tea got defeated,” the report said.
The Tea Board received several representations from producers’ associations representing sellers from the industry requesting to make it mandatory for the buyers to purchase 50 per cent tea from the auction out of the total tea purchased in a year.
“But no such mandatory procurement of 50 per cent tea from the auction system could be facilitated by the Board till date due to huge resistance from the buyer community,” the report said.
Also Read | What does the Forest Amendment Act mean for NE?