Kolkata: The Indian Tea Board and the Colombo Tea Auction Centre have agreed to collaborate in the implementation of an electronic platform for the auction of tea.

According to Basudeb Banerjee, chairman of the Tea Board, while the Colombo auction centre is taking inputs from an organisation closely attached with the New York Stock Exchange, the Tea Board has already appointed NSE.IT, the software development wing of the National Stock Exchange, for preparing a brand new trading platform for the six domestic auction centres.

"The Sri Lankan tea industry is introducing e-auction with some assistance from the Asian Development Bank. At present, we are partly ahead of the Sri Lankans in terms of electronic auctions but both of us have agreed to collaborate on this matter," Banerjee said.

He was talking to reporters after addressing members of the Tea Auction Buyers Association of Calcutta (TABAC) at the recent annual general meeting.

"We must all understand that the purpose of bringing electronic auction is to bring in more transparency, better price and reduction in transaction costs," he said.