The newly introduced e-auction system for tea trading seems to have gone awry with buyers, brokers and producers, as the Federation of All India Tea Traders Association (FAITA) has approached the Tea Board of India and sought an immediate correction in the system.
The technology driven e-auction has failed to create a effective information-exchange between the buyers and the sellers, industry players said.
Harendra Shah, President, FAITA told FE that tea traders did not get best prices for their stocks due to technical hurdles. Buyers could not buy the lot despite quoting high prices because the auction session closed at a pre-decided time, thus despite getting higher bids, tea traders were unable to sell their lots.
The lack of clarity in the operations of the e-auction system was prevalent in the system, due to which most of the members faced difficulty in operating through it, he said.
Shah emphasised upon the need to make the e-auction system user friendly. The association is said to have received many complaints regarding faults in the e-auction system, which had also caused wrong biding in some of the cases. The tea market starts at 8.30 every morning and trading continues through the evening; hence there is a need to make necessary corrections in the buyers? modules so as to make auction process more convenient to the buyers. He emphasised on the need for availability of the statistical information to the traders, which is not present in the current system. Additionally, there is a need for safe and secure transactions in e-auction. Shah pointed out that the current system is full of errors and loopholes, which could lead to heavy losses for buyers.