Assam's small tea growers get identity card with QR code to enable trading on mobile app

Kolkata: The Tea Board on Wednesday said it has initiated the process of issuance of an identity card with Quick Response Code to the small tea growers of Assam and the first batch of cards was distributed last week in the state’s Bongaigaon district. The identity card with QR code will be used for buying and selling of green leaf from small tea growers through a mobile app. [caption id=“attachment_2796962” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Reuters[/caption] “This innovation shall bring in transparency to the entire system of sale of the green leaf with mapping of growers supplying green leaf to individual factories and implementation of Direct Benefit Transfer to individual growers account,” the Board said in a statement. By using this app, small tea growers can record the quality and quantity of leaf for sale to the factories along with the date and time of sale. The price has been kept optional and the buyers will be able to buy the leaf from small tea growers by use of the same app. “In the process, the QR code in the ID card of individual growers shall be used to capture the growers’ details with a unique ID number. The data so generated shall be used to analyse the leaf details, quantity of leaf received by each factory with date and time of receipt, quality of leaf supplied by the small tea growers etc,” it said. The process of reaching out to the small tea growers and providing them with an id card with photograph and biometric features stored in a memory chip was started in 2013 by the Tea Board, which has so far collected the records of 88,000 small tea growers from Assam alone. This is among more than one lakh for the entire Northeast and nearly 75,000 id cards have been given to the small tea growers. According to the board, the thought process for continuous improvement in the system was on and search for new technological innovation for streamlining the leaf collection and sale with the help of the id card issued to the small tea growers was initiated. Finally, it was decided in 2017 to replace the existing ID card with biometric features by QR Code, it added.