Representatives of the powerloom sector in India, especially from the southern state of Tamil Nadu have once again made a plea to bring cotton under the Essential Commodities Act (ECA).
To press their demand for inclusion of cotton under ECA, a delegation of Indian powerloom sector is soon going to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Union Textiles Minister Anand Sharma, and hand over a memorandum in this regard.
President of the Confederation of Indian Powerloom Industries and Tamil Nadu Powerloom Federation, Mr. MS Mathivanan, said over the last 20 years, the federation is urging the Government for inclusion of cotton under the ECA, but to no avail.
He said India each year produced around 3.6 billion metres of powerloom fabric, but factors like cotton exports, power outages and weak market have pulled the production down to about 50 percent.
In spite of large quantity of raw cotton now being exported from India to different countries, cotton growers receive only minimum support price, he said.
Moreover, global cotton demand is waning as countries like the US, China and Australia are now largely engaged in cotton production.
While cotton prices in India have dropped from Rs. 40,000 per candy to Rs. 35,000 per candy (1 candy = 356 kg), yarn prices have not reduced to the same extent, Mr. Mathivanan said.
He urged the Centre to impose a ban on cotton exports, stating that hit by seasonal adversities the country's cotton output would keep low this year.
Mr. Mathivanan said the local powerloom industry consumes around 67 percent of the total cotton produced in Tamil Nadu, but powerloom fabric exports have hardly surged by three to four percent till now.
Around 150,000 of over 500,000 powerlooms operating in the state of Tamil Nadu are concentrated in Komarapalayam, Somanure, Erode and Pallipalayam regions, he said.
