Globally, cotton is losing its share in textile manufacturing because of the stiff competition it faces from polyester and other manmade fibres. In order to arrest the declining trend of cotton consumption, countries like USA, Australia, Brazil, etc. have effective demand enhancement programmes. Revealing this during the AGM of the Cotton Association of India recently, its outgoing President, Dhiren N Sheth said: “After years of hard work, research and planning, we also embarked on the generic promotion of cotton and as a medium, we chose School Contact Programmes (SCP), one of my dream projects….We have successfully completed the pilot of the SCP.â€Â
He added: “We also undertook a programme for promotion of Suvin cotton, which is arguably the best cotton in the world and considered to be the ‘Jewel of Indian cottons’. Our Association developed a brand named Suvin Ratna under which shirting material made out of Suvin Cotton was introduced to cater to the gifting needs of the members of the Association. This has received overwhelming response.â€Â
In order to showcase the rich and varied heritage of India’s cotton, CAI has started in right earnest its plan of establishing a cotton museum of international standard like the one in Egypt. CAI has already completed a fair amount of spadework and the museum is at an advance stage of implementation.