The Tea Board of India has informed that the board has inked an agreement with NSE.IT, a subsidiary of National Stock Exchange, for implementing electronic auction or e-auction of tea by end of 2008.

E-auction aims to reduce payment period and better price discovery while ensuring transparency with equal anywhere access and anonymity of buyers.

Tea is currently auctioned manually from six centres situated near gardens in southern and eastern India. With the launch, India will become the first country to have electronic tea auctions.

Earlier in 2004, the Tea Board had made an attempt to introduce electronic auction with software from Accenture and IBM, but it did not take off as there was some problem in the software.

The Tea Board will spend Rs 9.5 crore on the initiative and install 600 computers in six auction centres in the country.

Under the agreement, NSE.IT will provide the necessary software for e-auction, which will be tested at all the six auction centres in Kolkata, Guwahati, Siliguri, Coonoor, Kochi and Coimbatore.

Experimental testing of the system will be held during August-October this year. Once the testing process is over, all six centres will start installing the system.