Alleging adulteration of cotton by ginners in Gujarat, Southern India Mills' Association today sought Union Textile Minister Smriti Irani's intervention to curb the practice.
"Majority of the textile mills have reported that cotton purchased from Gujarat is adulterated causing grievous problems. A section of ginners in Gujarat are mixing cotton waste (comber noil - waste extracted by spinning mills) in the virgin cotton with profit motive," the Southern India Mills' Association (SIMA) alleged.
SIMA Chairman M Senthilkumar in a statement said that the industry has been facing the problem of adulteration for the last few years and the magnitude has increased substantially from the last cotton season.
He stated that the issue was brought to the notice of the Minister of Agriculture, Government of Gujarat and the Gujarat Ginners Association in December 2015. However, Senthilkumar claimed that there was no action taken by the Gujarat government.
"Since the adulteration problem has still been persisting, the Association today sent a representation to the Union Textile Minister Smriti Irani requesting her intervention and prevail on the Gujarat government to take necessary steps to curb the adulteration practice followed by certain section of the ginners in Gujarat," Senthilkumar said.
The textile mills in southern states, particularly in Tamil Nadu, mainly depend on cotton from western states like Gujarat and Maharashtra for cotton. Textile mills in Tamil Nadu mainly prefer Shankar 6 variety of cotton grown in Gujarat as it is suitable to produce hosiery yarn for garment sector. Tamil Nadu consumes 100 to 120 lakh bales of cotton annually while producing only around 5 lakh bales.
"As a result, textile mills have reduced the volume of purchase form Gujarat by 40 to 50 per cent are sourcing from Telangana besides importing from countries like West Africa and Australia," Senthilkumar said.
Normally, textile mills used to import five to six lakh bales of cotton to meet the customers' requirements, especially the Extra Long Staple (ELS) cotton. But in the last cotton season, due to adulteration problem, 23 lakh bales of cotton were imported incurring cost towards foreign exchange of Rs 3,600 crore for the additional 17 lakh bales, SIMA said.
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