Tripura tea auction centre set to open by April, transport subsidy announced

Tripura’s first tea auction centre at Gurkhabasti is expected to become operational by April, according to officials, marking a significant step for the state’s tea industry and revenue structure.

Chief Minister Manik Saha laid the foundation stone of the facility in March 2024 in the West Tripura district. Once functional, it will add Tripura to the list of states hosting tea auction centres, which currently stand at seven across the country.

Tripura Tea Development Corporation (TTDC) chairman Samir Ranjan Ghosh said, “We have set a target to operationalise the first tea auction centre at Gurkhabasti by April.”

The corporation has also decided to address concerns raised by buyers over transportation costs. “Paying heed to the demand,” TTDC will provide a subsidy of Rs 4 per kilogram from its own funds to make the centre commercially viable.

At present, tea growers in Tripura send their produce to auction centres in Guwahati and Kolkata. The process is both time-consuming and expensive due to high transport costs. According to Ghosh, “If we can establish a tea auction centre here, tea traders will not be required to send their products outside the state.” He added that buyers and sellers are likely to get “better price realisation” locally, as the state’s tea does not receive priority at auction centres outside Tripura.

Revenue implications form a key part of the state’s strategy. Ghosh noted that Tripura is still treated as a tea-producing state and is “losing crores of State GST”. Establishing the auction centre would shift its classification to a tea-consuming state, making it eligible to receive State GST on transactions conducted within its borders.

Tripura has 54 operational tea estates and produces around 90 lakh kilograms of made tea annually. More than 30,000 people are directly dependent on the sector, underscoring the economic weight of the proposed auction facility.