Siliguri, Nov. 28: Warehouse owners in town withdrew their three-day old strike today, giving relief to the stakeholders associated with Siliguri Tea Auction Centre (STAC).
The owners, who had been demanding revision of warehouse charges paid by tea buyers and sellers, had resorted to the strike from Tuesday after talks to fix the revised rates had failed on the previous day.
“The closure of the warehouses in and around Siliguri in the past few days disrupted activities like receipt of consignment from the estates and delivery to buyers, sampling of tea done by brokers and the storage,” said Gangadhar Agarwal, the chairman of the auction committee that runs STAC.
“It is good to see that the activities resumed at the warehouses today after an informal meeting between sellers and the owners in which decision on the proposed revised rates was taken,” Agarwal said.
According to stakeholders of the industry, the consignment of tea auctioned at STAC is stored in 27 warehouses of 5.28 lakh sqft floor area.
“Records available with us show that 5.47 lakh bags, containing 21 to 35kg of tea in each, were stocked at the warehouses on November 24 when the owners went on strike,” an official at STAC said.
According to him, the existing rates for storing tea bags at the warehouses are Rs 9.20 for each bag for the first 30 days and Rs 1.50 for every next week or part of the period.
The warehouse owners, who get the rates revised in every two years on the basis of discussions with sellers and buyers, had been demanding the revision since January when the agreement expired. There are 355 sellers and 385 buyers registered with STAC who store their tea at these warehouses.
“There was, however, unprecedented delay and reluctance on the part of other parties which prompted us to go on strike,” said Sandip Sinhal, the secretary of the Siliguri Tea Warehousing Association.
The outfit had called a token strike on October 30. With the decision remaining elusive, it resorted to two days strike on November 11 and 12 and then went for the three-day shutdown from November 25.
“We had demanded a hike of 40 per cent over the existing rates. However, after a discussion yesterday, we agreed to come down and decided to resume our activities,” Sinhal said. “The revised rates, however, are yet to be implemented as the negotiation was informal and we have not entered into any formal agreement.”
Buyers, too, expressed satisfaction as the strike ended. “We could not take out the teas we have purchased in the auction and dispatch to our clients,” said Rajiv Lochan, the director of Lochan Tea. “Now the strike is over and we hope things will normalise soon. On the demand of revision of warehouse rates, formal meetings will be held soon.”
