Guwahati, Aug. 30: The Guwahati Tea Auction Centre (GTAC) has urged the European Union (EU) to encourage EU importers to source their purchases only from the Tea Board?s licensed auction centres.

GTAC secretary Jayanta Kakati made this request to European Union project officials recently at a regional stakeholders conference in Dibrugarh on developing a code of conduct for the Indian tea industry.

The conference is being held under the aegis of a project funded by the EU, Building a Business Case for Corporate Social Responsibility in the Indian Tea Industry.

It is being jointly managed by the Centre of Education and Communication (CEC), New Delhi, FAKT Consult, Germany, and Traidcraft, UK.

Kakati told project officials that to ensure compliance with corporate social responsibility in respect of transparency, it was necessary to encourage EU importers to buy tea only from auction centres licensed under the Tea Board.

He said the auctions provide a totally transparent system of primary sale of tea and all steps are taken to ensure that the producer receives a fair deal on his offerings while the buyer has a wide range of choices available at a single point.

This is available only at the licensed auction centres, which provide such transparency.

He added that as a matter of corporate social responsibility to be practised by producers of the state, the first-point sale should be within the tea-producing state through licensed auction centres to ensure revenue for the state.

EU representatives said all teas, if routed through auctions, would give them access to information on prices and enable them to gauge the industry?s health.

A Tea Board study by A.F. Fergusson had pointed out that ?the auction system is still perceived by all participants in the tea industry as being a fundamentally sound system for the primary marketing of tea.

The need of the hour is to strengthen it through a variety of auction reforms. It is in the interest of both the industry as well as the Tea Board and government to ensure that the auction system not only survives but also regains its importance as the best and main vehicle for primary marketing of tea?.

The Indian Tea Association (ITA) has opposed the recommendations of the committee on tea constituted by the Assam government regarding routing of teas through the auctions.

The ITA felt that the auction system cannot guarantee any pricing comfort to cover production costs.

The stakeholders? meeting had recommended that the Tea Board should take measures to set up sample testing laboratories at auction centres to ensure the teas conform to international quality and do not have non-permissible residues.

The recommendation is more valid for the small segment, producers of which do not send their teas through the auctions at present.