Fresh Cotton Quota For Export Released
The ministry had last released a quota of 50,000 bales of staple cotton for export from Maharashtra in May last. Earlier, on April 26, the ministry had released 50,000 tonne for export from Maharashtra.
All this comes close on the heels of a recent decision to allow export of additional two lakh bales of staple cotton to provide a marketing outlet for cotton growers.
This followed the Hyderabad high court judgment declaring that the election commission had overstepped its jurisdiction while imposing a ban on the export of cotton. The ban had adversely affected marketing of the raw cotton produced in the current season, creating serious hardships for the growers.
At the same time, 50,000 bales of cotton were released to the Gujarat Apex Cooperative Federation and an equal quantity to the Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) for export. An additional quantity of one lakh bales of staple cotton was released for export by modern ginning and pressing units.
The CCI had then been asked to procure the allotted quantity of 50,000 bales from Andhra Pradesh alone where the cotton growers had suffered the most due to a sharp fall in cotton prices this year.
This implies that altogether approximately 15.9 lakh bales of cotton have been released for export by the ministry in 1995-96. This has been possible as cotton prices in the country have been low and fairly stable and the cotton crop has been reasonably good.
According to recent calculations done by the textile ministry, close to 26 per cent of the total raw cotton grown in the country will end up being exported this year.
Exports of cotton yarn this year are expected to be about 325 million kgs. Using a conversion factor of 10 million kgs is equal to 0.73 lakh bales of raw cotton, the total works the year.