Bill to compel disclosure of cotton, mill output mooted

The Union textiles ministry proposes to make collection of cotton production data a real-time and formal exercise, under a legal framework.

A Cotton Development Bill proposes to compel all stakeholders to provide data of production and availability. The bill is under preparation, said officials.

“The data for arriving at the cotton estimate is quite disorganised, informal. Primarily, we depend on mandi arrivals for working out the estimate. The Cotton Advisory Committee (CAB) which works out the estimate relies on data which is voluntarily disclosed and provides the estimate with a lag. At any given point, the data is of no use. One has to rely on field observations for real-time data,” explained an official source.

The bill will mandate disclosure of production data at ginning and mill consumption levels. There are reports of farmers holding on to cotton production and in such a situation, we do not have a correct estimate of total production, added officals. Earlier reports said cotton export was seven million bales, while current data shows export at 7.5 mn bales, which put the closing stock at 4.25 mn bales, unlike what we have in the CAB estimate, said official sources.

TOWARDS TRANSPARENCY Area, production and productivity of cotton in India
Year	Area	Production	Yield
2000-01	8.57	14.0	278
2001-02	8.73	15.8	308
2002-03	7.67	13.6	302
2003-04	7.63	17.9	399
2004-05	8.78	24.3	470
2005-06	8.70	24.4	478
2006-07	9.14	28.0	521
2007-08	9.41	30.7	554
2008-09	9.40	29.0	524
2009-10	10.31	29.5	486
2010-11	11.16	31.2	475
Source : Cotton Advisory Board Note: Area in million hectares, production in million bales  (1 bale +170 kg), yields in kg/hectare

The textile commissioner’s office (TCO) has to extrapolate data for arriving at estimates. There are around 3,300 spinning mills in India, both small and large. Each month, the TCO receives data from 95 per cent to 97 per cent of spinning mills, and needs to extrapolate the data for the remaining ones. Besides, cotton consumption estimates reported by the TCO do not include linters, which are by-products. Officials add that when a mill stops operating, the TCO does not initially know if this is temporary or permanent. Similarly, any large spinning unit coming into operation will be known, but new small spinning units can go undetected for some time.