With no sign of abatement of tension in the Darjeeling Hills, the supply of the prized tea is now drying up and indications are there would no offering of the commodity at the auction to be held in a fortnight from now.
Offerings at Sale No.29 of Calcutta auctions held this week stood at 17,000 kg against the 80-85,000 kg usually offered, Calcutta Tea Traders Association Secretary J Kalyanasundaram told The Hindu . This is expected to drop to about 3,000 kgs in next week’s sale and then to a mere 1000 kgs in Sale 31 scheduled for the first week of August.
‘Nil offering’
“As there are no stocks left , a scenario of nil Darjeeling offerings seems likely from mid-August”, he said. Industry officials said that they could not recollect such a situation in recent times. Usually there are some pipeline-stocks for other varieties of teas offered at auctions (like dust and CTC) for Darjeeling teas, there are hardly any stocks left when the new tea season resumes in February.
Some teas have got spoilt in the gardens too, industry feared since the indefinite strike since June 15 by the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha demanding statehood.
This would hurt the brand of Darjeeling tea in export markets while shrinking its availability in the domestic markets, said Binod Mohan, chairman, Darjeeling Tea Association.
Usually, about 35% of Darjeeling tea is sold through auctions. However, prices have increased to ₹691per kg this year against ₹500 a year ago.
Darjeeling tea output has been stagnating at about 8 million kg having dropped by almost 50% since the 15 million kg production-level of the 1990s. This year, a little more than 2 million kg was produced between March and early June when trouble erupted in the hills.
Mr.Mohan said even if the strike was called off now, this year’s Darjeeling tea was all but lost as the overgrown bushes can no longer yield the fragrant beverage.
