Quality control order to control inferior silk import on the cards

Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Thursday said the government was looking to bring quality control order silk to regulate the inbound shipments of silk into the country.

“Quality control on silk is being considered so that if there is substandard quality of silk coming into India that can be curbed,” Goyal said at the end of the two-day textile conclave in Varanasi.

The minister’s comments were in response to a question of poor quality silk coming into the country from China.

Goyal also said the memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between Cotton Corporation of India, under the Ministry of Textiles and the Cotton Textiles Export Promotion Council (TEXPROCIL), to address ‘Traceability, Certification, Branding’ of ‘Kasturi Cotton India’.

Kasturi Cotton India is a brand of cotton announced two years ago with an aim to build the image of Indian cotton at a global level, making India self-reliant and moving toward a vocal local mantra in the field of cotton.

“To encourage the trade and industry to work on the principle of self-regulation by owning complete responsibility of Traceability, Certification and Branding of Indian cotton, the Ministry of Textiles will also contribute an equal share of Rs 15 crore, along with trade and industry bodies over a period of three cotton seasons starting from 2022-23 to 2024-25,” an official statement said.

An MoU is expected to provide complete traceability of cotton from the origin farm level, QR code based certification technology to validate “KASTURI Cotton India” at each stage and will Promote “KASTURI Cotton India” as a premium brand by enhancing international perception and valuation of Indian cotton.

This will make Indian cotton a reliable quality product, both in the domestic and global markets, thereby facilitating premium pricing, government officials said.

The minister also said the government was mulling the formation of an advisory group for technical/manmade textiles from raw material to exporter, similar to the advisory group of cotton.