North Eastern Tea Association about current issues as they arise pertaining to Assam's tea industry, besides making various suggestions to the government for the betterment and the upscaling of the industry sector. The organization has made numerous suggestions to the Government of Assam for the upscaling the tea industry in the region. NETA has recently suggested to move the Tea Board of India's head office to Guwahati on the basis of the fact that the other five statutory "Commodity Boards" under the Department of Commerce, Govt. of India – Tea, Coffee, Rubber, Spices and Tobacco are headquartered in the State where the product is
Nilgiri tea in South India. However, plantations only account for around 30% of tea production in Nilgiri District. The vast majority of production is undertaken by small growers, who typically own less than one hectare each. The majority of Nilgiri tea small growers are the Badagas, a local community of agriculturists. Tea plantations in Nilgiri District (as in other growing districts of India) typically own and operate their own processing factories. Small growers sell their tea as green leaf to "bought leaf factories", which are independently owned. (Although in recent years, some plantation factories have started buying green leaf from small growers)