Tea Board has announced that the district average price for green leaf which bought leaf factories should pay the small growers in The Nilgiris during the current month will be₹15.14 a kg. This is more than ` ₹14 a kg fixed for September and ₹11 a kg fixed for October 2017.
Tea Board Executive Director C Paulrasu said that this price has been fixed “based on the consolidated auction sale average price of CTC teas of bought leaf factories during September”.
He has instructed all field officers of the Board to ensure that no factory in their jurisdiction paid a price less than this while buying the green leaf in October.
“This is disappointing. We had been representing to fix the average price at the end of the month based on the price our teas fetch at the auctions during the concerned month”, Ramesh Bhojarajan, President, The Nilgiri Bought Leaf Tea Manufacturers’ Association, told Business Line.
“On our representation, for a few months till last month, Tea Board had fixed the green leaf price at the end of the month but now, it has reverted to its earlier practice of fixing at the price beginning of the month”, he said.
“The price we pay to the growers for our raw material should be based on the price we get at the auctions for the end produce we manufacture using that raw material. This will mean the real price recovery but this can happen only when the raw material (green leaf) price is fixed at the end of the month based on the price fetched for our teas at the auctions”, he explained.
“While the growers get a protection for their green leaf, we have no such protection for the price we get at the auctions. We have, therefore, appealed to the Tea Board to fix the price for the green leaf based on the auction price in the month concerned”, Ramesh disclosed.