After a meeting between the high ranking officials of Cotton Corporation of India and Ministry of Textiles, Government of India in Rajkot, it was decided that the former would buy one million bales of cotton at the rate of Rs 170 per kilogram from Gujarat region in general and Saurashtra region in particular. As the Ministry of Textiles is particular aboiut creating a buffer stock of cotton to cater to the textile industry in the country, it had directed CCI to buy one million bales of cotton from Gujarat. It is learnt that CCI would buy cotton from farmers at the rate of Rs 900 per maund (one maund equals 20 kg) for the high quality cotton.
According to V Srinivas, Joint Secretary (Cotton Division and TUFS), Ministry of Textiles, the CCI will rouce cotton from Gujarat, more particularly from the Saurashtra region, which grows high quality cotton. What is more, the farmers of this region also have excessive stock of cotton. In fact, CCI has already initiated the procurement process from March 31, 2012 and had so far bought in excess of 110,000 bales of cotton from the State. Out of this, about 57,000 bales were sourced from Rajkot and other perepheral areas of Saurashtra. The official said that due to some discord between the cotton growers and the CII over procurement prices and product quality, the sourcing of cotton was temporarily suspended. So far, CCI has established 33 souricng centres in and around Saurashtra region, he said and added that the farmers in Gujarat still had an inventory of more than 2.5 million bales of cotton.
