India to focus on cotton branding

Following the success of branded cotton from Egypt and the US, the Government of India is considering branding of the locally produced fibre to fetch premium prices from overseas importers. Textiles Commissioner Kavita Gupta has held several rounds of meetings with various stakeholders of the industry, including traders, ginners, textile mills and garment manufacturers to draft guidelines for revising the “Technology Mission on Cotton” (TMC).

The revised TMC will allow exporters to improve the quality of Indian cotton, with less contamination, trash and staple length in the raw fibre, almost similar to Egyptian and US cotton currently available. Apart from that, the TMC will also accommodate ‘contract farming’ in cotton for commercial purposes.

Introduced in 2000, TMC was aimed at improving the yield and quality of cotton through the use of improved seeds and integrated water, nutrient and pest management technologies. The existing TMC, however, has missing pieces such as enabling provisions for contract farming and branding which, experts feel, are needed for better realisation in export markets.