The Union Government should come out with a scheme to ensure raw material availability to the domestic textile mills, according to J. Thulasidharan, president of Indian Cotton Federation.
At the annual general meeting of the association here on Friday, he said that the Bangladesh Government had come out with a raw material protection programme. The Indian Government was reported to have made a quantitative commitment of 1.5 million bales of cotton export to Bangladesh. This was following the “Textile Raw Material Protection Policy” of the Bangladesh Government.
While there should not be any ban or control on cotton export, the Government should ensure availability of adequate quantity of the raw material to the domestic industry, he said.
The Ministry of Textiles should also restore the earlier structure of the Cotton Advisory Board.
Indian cotton found regular buyers from China, Pakistan and Bangladesh. India produced nearly 340 lakh bales of cotton in 2012-13. This was expected to give a comfortable stock position for the domestic textile industry.
But nearly 100 lakh bales of cotton were exported in the peak cotton season. Price of Shankar – 6 variety of cotton was at Rs. 32,000 to Rs. 34,000 a candy for most part of the year. However, it shot up to nearly Rs. 50,000 a candy by the end of August this year.
Hence, the textile industry, which was dependent on just-in-time inventory, faced problems. Thus, even in a year of comfortable stock, the spinning sector was denied the benefit of comfortable position of raw material availability.
The industry consumed nearly 285 lakh bales and the carry forward stock this year was expected to be one of the lowest, he said.
