The Tea Marketing Control Order (TMCO), 2003, has caught buyers on the wrong foot. While producers remain largely unpreturbed by the order, it is the buyers who find themselves in a fix, in a bid to make the mechanism more transparent and in turn to make the industry pricing more fair.
The order stipulates that every buyer of tea must register under the TMCO within sixty days of the publication of the order in the official gazette. Moreover, every registered buyer shall buy such percentage of his total purchase of tea as maybe directed from time to time by the registering authority through public auctions.
Even in private sales, every registered manufacturer who sells teas outside the auction system, shall do so only to registered buyers and details of such sale shall be intimated to the registering authority within fifteen working days of the conclusion of such sale.
Last but not the least, the TMCO has also dealt with the determination of reasonable price and more importantly, its compliance.
The reasonable price for tea leaves shall be determined according to the formula to be specified by the registering authority from time to time and implemented in a manner as determined by the authority.
The registering authority reserves the right to direct any broker, through whom the manufacturer has sold any made tea, to deduct from the proceeds of such sale an amount equivalent to the difference between the reasoanleble price of tea leaves as determined by the authority or by any officer authorised by the authority and the actual price paid by the manufacturer for the tea leaves bought by him.
Most of the buyers feel that the whole foundation of the order goes against the spirit of liberlisation. While the most of the producers said that the new order for the producers mean only signing some extra forms, the traders bodies feel that it is detrimental for its business. In fact, auctions in Kolkata have been postponed.
The Federation of All India Tea Traders
