The Southern India Mills’ Association (SIMA) will work with the State government to increase the area under cotton cultivation in Tamil Nadu, said Ravi Sam, chairman of Southern India Mills’ Association. Mr. Ravi Sam and association vice-chairman Durai Palanisamy told presspersons here on Monday that Tamil Nadu was once a major cotton producing State. Though it was a leading textile producer now, the industry purchased cotton from other States.
With the removal of 1 % market committee cess on cotton, the Cotton Corporation of India(CCI) has expressed willingness to establish warehouses in the State. The first one will come up in Coimbatore and the Central Warehousing Corporation will handle it, said T. Rajkumar, chairman of Confederation of Indian Textile Industry. The CCI had nine lakh bales of cotton with it and if the industry wanted to purchase cotton from it, the CCI would move the cotton to the warehouses here. This would help in cost saving for the industry. With the Union government approving the Production Linked Incentive Scheme for textiles, 10 to 15 industries in the State were expected to invest approximately ₹300 crore each under the scheme.
Works to commission a textile processing park proposed by SIMA at Cuddalore would be expedited. The association had developed a common infrastructure at Cuddalore with an investment of ₹96 crore, and two units had expressed willingness to put up plants immediately. The Union government would support establishing one mega textile park in each southern State. The Tamil Nadu government had expressed willingness to have three parks - at Dharmapuri, Thoothukudi, and Virudhunagar.
Mr. Ravi Sam said the other focus areas of the Association were working with the Union government and urging it to sign free trade agreements with select countries soon. Further, the import duty on cotton should be removed and the hank yarn obligation should be reduced to 20 %, he said.
