Calcutta, June 21: The pan-India electronic auction of tea has been deferred to June 23, a notification by the Tea Board said.

The e-auction was scheduled to begin from June 21 for sellers in Calcutta, Guwahati and Cochin. For Coimbatore and Siliguri, it was slated for June 22, while for Coonoor the auction date was June 23.

"The Tea Board has not accepted many of the terms and conditions put forward by the brokers, buyers and sellers and is reviewing the system again," said an industry source.

Recently, the Tea Board had revised the auction norms by allowing proxy bidding. In addition, the tax rate for inter-state sales has also been revised. Now, the buyers will either have to pay the state tax that is 2 per cent or the value-added tax, whichever is lower.

About 2,000 small growers are in distress as the tea brokers have stopped paying advances to the factories for the past few weeks because of a lack of clarity on recovery of their advances from tea producers in the pan-India auctions system.

According to the Confederation of Indian Small Tea Grower's Association (CISTA), for the past few years some self help groups were running tea manufacturing units in Bengal and Assam with financial help from brokers.