BATHINDA: The declaration by the Northern India Textiles Mills Association (NITMA) on Tuesday that the industry saw one third decline in exports in the first quarter of the current fiscal has come to haunt the cotton growers of the region.
According to NITMA, the higher minimum support price (MSP) for cotton in India was making their produce internationally uncompetitive.
It is said cotton from US was cheap than India and China, which was a big market for the Indian yarn, was favouring Pakistan for cotton imports.
Farmers are worried that these trends will affect the market prices of cotton, the harvest for which will begin in the first week of September. Cotton has been sow over nearly 16 lakh hectares in three North Indian states of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan, with an estimated production of over 60 lakh bales (1 bale=170kg).
The Union government had raised the MSP for cotton by Rs 100 per quintal for 2019-20. One NITMA official said last year the MSP was enhanced by 27%, which the textile industry felt made the export of their produce costly.
NITMA had put an advertisement on Tuesday stating that the Indian spinning industry was facing its biggest crisis resulting in huge job losses, one third of spinning capacity was closed in the country, mills were currently incurring huge losses and upcoming cotton crop of four crore bales valued at Rs 80,000 crore would not find buyers in India and abroad. According to industry estimates, over 6 crore persons are involved in the textile sector, which has witnessed big job cuts — over 25 lakh jobs — in the last one decade.
Even the cotton ginning industry (supplier to the textile mills) is in doldrums in Punjab. Punjab Cotton Factories and Ginners Association president Bhagwan Bansal said there were 422 ginning mills in Punjab in 2007 and the number had drastically come down to 60. “Nearly 40,000 workers were employed by the ginning factories. In the last 12 years, 34,000 jobs were lost. Future of textile industry and, ultimately, cotton growers is bleak. The government must do something to arrest the trend. We have sought time from Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman to raise the issue,” he said.
According to trade body, Indian Cotton Association Limited, president Mahesh Sharda, the steep increase of 27% in cotton MSP in 2018-19 proved very dear to the industry. “Now cotton in the international market is cheaper than India, which is making our textiles industry uncompetitive. The government needs to look into it and provide some sops to the lift the morale of the industry,” he added.
“If the industry is in doldrums it will surely reach the farmers. The government must step in before it is too late and the worst happens,” peasant organisation BKU (Ekta Ugrahan) activist and farmer Shingara Singh Mann said. “We are concerned over the fate of cotton farmers, as they had to face lots of losses in the past due to pest attack and distress sale. We are not in position to face more such losses.”
Published On : 26-08-2019
Source : Times of India
