Four Assam and West Bengal tea-producer associations have asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to withdraw a 2015 rule requiring at least half of India's tea to be sold through public auction.

The associations, which said they account for nearly 60% of north India's tea output, want producers free to sell direct to buyers, and said the auction requirement adds cost without improving the price they fetch. Assam and West Bengal together grow close to 80% of India's tea.

The appeal, made on April 17, followed a Tea Board of India circular in March that reissued the rule and warned gardens that ignore it. After a compliance review covering 2024 through August 2025 found many manufacturers had not been selling the required share through auction, some saying they were unaware of the requirement, the board issued show-cause notices, called non-compliant producers to personal hearings, and said that failure to take part "will be viewed seriously by the Registering Authority," according to Sentinel Assam.

The associations put the cost of routing tea through the auction at about 10 rupees a kilogram (about 12 US cents), roughly 5% of the average selling price and often more than a garden's net margin, according to their representation as reported by New Kerala. They said a separate rule that pushed all dust grades onto the auction in 2024 and 2025 had raised costs without meeting its aim, and argued the mandate lengthens the selling cycle and runs against the government's ease-of-doing-business policy.

The auction requirement dates to a notification effective October 1, 2015, made under the Tea (Marketing) Control Order, 2003, itself framed under the Tea Act, 1953. The four signatories are the Assam Bought Leaf Tea Manufacturers Association, the North Eastern Tea Association, Bharatiya Cha Parishad, and the North Bengal Tea Producers' Welfare Association.

The public auctions are where India sets a reference price for its tea (see the tea auctions), so how much leaf clears through them shapes the benchmark the rest of the trade reads. The dispute now sets the two regions that grow most of India's crop against the marketplace the board uses to price it. The producers want the choice of where to sell, and the board wants the volume on the floor.

Sources: Deccan Herald, Tea bodies in Assam, West Bengal urge PM Modi to withdraw auction sale directives (17 April 2026); Sentinel Assam, Tea Board Orders Manufacturers to Sell 50% Production Through Auctions or Face Action (5 March 2026); New Kerala, Tea Producers Seek PM Modi's Help to Withdraw 50% Auction Mandate (17 April 2026).