The Tobacco Board has announced that the auction of tobacco will start in Karnataka from September 30.
Board chairman Y. Raghunadha Babu said this in a statement on Wednesday, days after he met tobacco growers at Chilkunda auction platform in Mysuru and assured them that the auctions will start by the end of the month.
To begin with, auctions will commence at the platforms in Periyapatna and Chilkunda. The process of auction will start in the remaining nine auction platforms from October 7.
Regional Manager of Tobacco Board, Mysuru, Manjunath said the SOPs will be in place during the auction process.
In Karnataka, the auction season for tobacco starts in September-October every year and continues till February-March by when all the produce is exhausted. Earlier this year, auction of tobacco was suspended abruptly in March following the outbreak of COVID-19 even though more than 2.5 million kgs of the produce remained unsold.
However, auctions resumed towards end of May, after the lockdown was lifted, and the remaining tobacco was sold.
More than 80% of the tobacco grown in about one lakh hectares of Mysuru and parts of adjoining Hassan district is classified as superior Flue Cured Virginia (FCV) variety that is exported to various cigarette manufacturing companies abroad.
In view of an anticipated dip in global demand for tobacco due to COVID-19, the Tobacco Board, earlier this year, had reduced the crop size from 99 million kg to 88 million kg. The reduction in crop size had also correspondingly reduced the ceiling for each of the estimated 56,000 licensed tobacco farmers from the earlier 1,700 kg to 1,552 kg.
Tobacco is grown in around one lakh hectares in Karnataka, mostly in Periyapatna, Hunsur, K R Nagar and H D Kote taluks of Mysuru district, besides Arkalgud and Holenarsipur in neighbouring Hassan district.
Tobacco output almost always outstrips the ceiling fixed by the Tobacco Board forcing the farmers to cough up a penalty for cultivating unauthorised or excess crop. Tobacco cultivated in excess of the authorised limit for each licensed farmer as well as the tobacco grown by unlicensed farmers is considered as unauthorised and excess tobacco for which a penalty has to be paid.
