DIBRUGARH: In a first, a mobile application for the state's small tea growers was launched here on Monday.Small Tea Leaf Exchange, the brainchild of prominent tea planter Suresh Varma, will facilitate direct transactions between buyers and sellers. Small tea growers can upload their offering of green tea leaves while buyers — mainly organized tea gardens and bought leaf tea factories — can evaluate the offers and make their bids. The app will be linked to the SBI Anywhere mobile application to enable digital monetary transactions."Small tea growers are the backbone of the state's economy. The app will help to bring more transparency to the green tea leaf trade and will definitely help the small tea growers realise better prices," Varma said.Launching the app at the Dibrugarh District Library, deputy commissioner Laya Madduri said, "The app will ease the problems faced by small tea growers. It will resolve the pricing issues and transportation problems that small tea growers usually face while selling green tea leaves. Now, they will be able to make an offer through the app and buyers will collect it from their doorstep. It will ensure full transparency as well."Assam has 1.34 lakh small tea growers who, on an average, produce 820 million kg green tea leaves annually. Tea growers holding less than 10.12 hectares of 25 acres of plantation land are categorized as small tea growers.One of the problems tea growers in the state face is that of the minimum benchmark price of green tea leaves. While minimum benchmark price of green tea leaves has been been fixed at Rs 17 per kg, tea manufacturing units rarely follow the norms while buying. The buyer usually pays between Rs 7 to Rs 12 per kg to small tea growers, who have been demanding proper pricing policy for tea leaves for a long time.

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