No cotton/yarn shortage, clarifies Centre

In order to ensure availability of cotton for domestic mills, the Indian Government had directed Cotton Corporation of India Ltd to sell its stock of cotton (cotton season 2015-16), purchased under MSP, to spinning mills in the micro small medium enterprise (MSME) category to contain fluctuation in cotton prices.

The Minister of State, Textiles, Ajay Tamta conveying this in a written reply to a Lok Sabha question, stated that the Government reviews the cotton availability position from time to time, and that adequate availability of cotton is ensured through domestic production and textile mills are able to source their requirement of cotton from the domestic market.

The is no shortage of cotton/yarn in the country, he said. The Government has been implementing various policy initiatives and schemes like Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme (TUFS), Schemes for the development of the Power-loom Sector, Schemes for Technical Textiles, Scheme for Integrated Textile Parks (SITP) and Scheme for Integrated Textile Processing Development (IPDS) to enable the textile industry, including the small industries, to upgrade and make them competitive.

The Government has also launched a Rs 6000 crore Scheme for Production and Employment Linked Support for Garmenting Units (SPELSGU) under ATUFS to incentivise production and employment generation in the garmenting Sector.