The Cotton Corporation of India (CCI), which purchased 22 lakh bales of cotton at minimum support price (MSP) this season, plans to exhaust the stocks with it by September.
B. K. Mishra, Chairman and Managing Director, told The Hindu that the corporation had six lakh bales of stock now. Exports are not viable now, though the government has permitted it to do so, as the new crop has started coming in the international market. In June, the CCI had 22 lakh bales. In July it was 15 lakh bales, and now it is six lakh bales. About 50 per cent of the purchases were by the traders, and the rest by the textile mills. The CCI purchased 22.86 lakh bales under MSP operations and about a lakh bale under commercial operation this season. The rates have been good since July, and were relatively stable last week. Prices hovered between Rs.35,000 and Rs.40,000 a candy till March 2013. It started going up gradually after that, and were expected to come down when new arrivals start in October.
On the next season, which starts in October, he said that the area under cotton was almost the same as last year. With good rains, the crop is expected to be higher.
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“We are not looking at MSP operations next season, except may be in some pockets in Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra,” he said.