Siliguri, June 29: Around 9,000 packages of tea that had been lying in Central Warehousing Corporation’s godowns in Matigara for more than two years and are feared to be unfit for human consumption have been pumped into circulation.

Each package weighs 22-35kg, which puts the total figure to approximately 2.56 lakh kg of tea.

Another 41,000 packages of the same tea will soon be lifted from the warehouses because a private bank is auctioning off most of the stock, which was mortgaged and later confiscated after the owners failed to pay up loans amounting to crores of rupees.

Sources in the tea industry said the entire consignment was damaged and would pose health risks if consumed.

The stock has been under the scanner ever since the Tea Board of India ordered a portion of it — 2.54 lakh kg to be precise —to be destroyed because samples of the tea did not conform to the standards outlined by the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act.

The samples were seized during a joint raid at the two warehouses at Paribahanagar and Matigara by the health department and the tea board in July last year. Later, the Tea Board tested the samples.

“Specific orders were sent to destroy the tea according to the Tea Waste Control Order,” said H.N. Dwibedi, a consultant to the tea board. “But none of the owners of the stocks could be located. The notices sent in their given addresses came back. The addresses were false.”

Industry insiders said the entire bulk of tea was “bad tea” or tea waste. “It looks like the owners of the stock never intended to return the borrowed sum and the whole stock was just an eyewash to dupe the bank,” one of them said.

Even if the tea was good, it might have turned bad in the warehouses. “The shelf life of tea is one year from the date of manufacture that too if it is kept strictly in cold and dry conditions,” a tea board official said.

“Here, the tea is already about two-and-half years old,” an industry source said.

However, Siliguri-based trader B. Agarwal, who has bought 16 lakh kg of the tea, said he was lifting only “good tea”. “Barring the packages that the tea board has sealed, the others are okay,” he said. “We have entered into a clear understanding with the bank that we will test the stocks and lift only the tea that is usable.

When asked, A. Roy Choudhury, deputy director, tea board, Siliguri, said: “The stocks being lifted are not the ones that we had seized.”

P.K. Bhattacharya, the secretary of the Dooars Branch of Indian Tea Association, said: “The buyers must get the health department to test the tea under the guidelines of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act and only then release it in the market.”

Dwibedi on his part said the Tea Board would take action with the help of the health department if anyone raised a complaint.

“We will collect samples and get them tested,” Dwibedi added.

An official of the bank that is auctioning the stock said: “Our corporate communication team, which is entitled to give an official statement, is out of station and will not be available for 15 days.”