IT BASED INFORMATION DISSEMINATION PLAN FOR TEA INDUSTRY
As a major step towards
reorienting the tea industry in India in the changed global scenario
and as part of a medium term export strategy for the commodity,
government has approved implementation of an IT based information
dissemination programme. Accordingly, the Tea Board has prepared
an IT Plan for implementation over the next 5 years, with a capital
outlay of Rs. 9.93 crores, which has been approved by the government.
The core activity under the Plan is the setting up of a
"Tea Portal" to disseminate vital information
across various segments of the industry, covering areas like
market profiles, exporter rating, production, quality control,
statistics, research & development, trade-related information,
taxation/duty structure, schemes, notifications, weather data,
latest news and most crucially, domestic auction and international
prices.
In order to
provide real time information on prices, the Plan envisages the
capture of trends at the weekly tea auctions across various centres
in the country and instant dissemination of the same through the
Tea Portal. To streamline this activity, the Government has given
the nod to the Tea Board for E-trading of tea at all the licensed
auction centres within the current year. A provision of nearly
Rs. 4.30 crore has been made in the IT Plan for auction centre
infrastructure alone. It is expected that this would lead to greater
transparency at the auctions and efficient price discovery in
the primary market. Moreover, the auctions would get speeded up
and there would be a reduction in the back office costs for all
stakeholders, including sellers, brokers and buyers, besides providing
a powerful MIS facility in their hands.
The IT Plan provides
for information dissemination in remote locations, such as plantation
areas inhabited by small growers and relatively unconnected through
the traditional means of communication. The Tea Portal, besides
giving market information to the growers in such areas, would
also strive to address their needs on farm technology through
IT based extension as well as query handling. Ultimately, it would
provide a common platform to all segments of the tea industry
to share their experiences for mutual benefit.
The IT Plan also
envisages the establishment of an efficient data collection mechanism,
as well as timely collation and publication of the same through
the Tea Portal. A dedicated IT cell is sought to be put in place
in the Tea Board for the smooth operation of the Plan and for
achieving the desired objectives. Government expects that the
entire infrastructure, including the software, hardware and communication
elements, which will incorporate cutting-edge technology, will
be in place before March 2004. While the Tea Board would bear
the initial cost of the initiative, in due course the Tea Portal
would aim to become self-sustaining with the support of the tea
industry.
Under the medium
term export strategy, termed "Operation Vijay", several
front-end and back-end activities have already been taken up including
"Information dissemination" through the application
of Information Technology. Lack of information flow to the international
buyers about Indian tea on the one hand, and inadequate feedback
on foreign markets to Indian tea producers on the other, are factors
responsible for the faltering tea exports from the country. It
was therefore felt necessary to leverage the advances made in
Internet technology to disseminate useful and requisite information
to all the stakeholders in the tea industry.
