The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Commerce that went into the coffee sector has suggested amendment to the Coffee Act 1942 to ensure the representations of roasters and exporters on the board of the Coffee Board.
“The composition of the board members of the Coffee Board is still reflective of the pre-free market era and there has been no amendment to the Coffee Act since liberalisation of marketing in 1996 to accommodate roasters and exporters on the board,” says the report of the committee tabled in Parliament recently.
The board of Coffee Board has 33 members, headed by a Chairman appointed by the Commerce Ministry, and among the remaining 32 members are representatives from various interests such as growers, trade, curing establishments, labour and consumer interests, state governments of various coffee producing states and the Members of Parliament.
The committee is also upset to note that there has been no representation of small coffee growers of Kerala on the board for the past 10 years or so.
“The committee understands the small coffee growers’ representatives of three major producing states of Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu are to have representations on the board and the exclusion of small growers’ representative of Kerala for the past 10 years therefore is not appreciated,” observes the report, adding, “the omission must be addressed at the earliest”.
In Kerala, out of 77,235 growers, the number of small growers will be 76,960. A small grower is one who has less than 10 hectares to produce coffee.
The 30-member committee, comprising MPs from both the Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha, was headed by Shanta Kumar.
Contract workers
The committee has noted that a large number of employees are working on contract for years in the Coffee Homes run by the Coffee Board and these employees could not be regularised for want of sanctioned posts.
The committee therefore has urged the Ministry to take necessary steps to sanction sufficient number of regular posts for employment in the Coffee Homes “which showcase Indian coffee and Coffee Board”. There is also need for facelift of the Coffee Homes, the report has suggested.
The committee has emphasised the need for Coffee Board playing a more purposeful role in coming years and suggested the transformation of its organisational structure from its present bureaucratic type to a knowledge-based one.
Hierarchical set-up
The hierarchical set-up may have to be replaced with professionals, experts and cultivators with specialisation in their respective fields and capable of responding to the changing requirements of different sections of the industry.
The organisation needs to engage specialists in areas such as research, post-harvest management and processing, quality assurance including standards, export and domestic marketing, facilitation, market research and information systems, the report adds.