Lakshminarayana elected Chairman of SIMACDRA

B Lakshminarayana has been elected Chairman of SIMA Cotton Development and Research Association (SIMACDRA) for the year 2016-17.
While R Elango was elected as Deputy Chairman, R Ravichandran was elected as Vice-Chairman of the Association, at its 41st Annual General Meeting held here last night.
SIMA CDRA was established in 1974 by the textile mills in the Southern States of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Pondicherry, with the objective to promote the development of cotton farming for enhancing cotton production, productivity and fibre quality so that raw cotton may be made available at reasonable price to the mills.
It supplements the efforts of the State and Central Governments and other agencies in promoting the increased production of quality cotton to meet the demands of the textile industry, an association release said today.

The association had come out with a indigenous kapas plucking machine in a cost effective manner and a farmer can pick 6-0-80 kg of kapas per day as against 20 kgs of manual picking.
Tamil Nadu government has offered 50 per cent subsidy for this machine so as to motivate the farmers to opt for cotton cultivation, thereby increase cotton area and sustain the textile industry.