South India Cotton sets up centre in Gujarat

South India Cotton Association (SICA), Coimbatore, is set to open its first cotton information centre and cotton testing facility in Gujarat.

The initiative comes on the back of the estimate that cotton production from Gujarat this season is likely to cross 1 crore bales.

The cotton information centre has been planned as a link between the textile mill owners, labourers in the south and the cotton producers in Gujarat.

The centre is planning to maintain information on the season yield, quality standards and other textile news. Around 3,000 trader members and 500 ginners are expected to be members of the centre.

"Eighty per cent of the Shankar variety cotton produced in Gujarat is sent to textile mills in south which comes to around 40 lakh bales. With the expected bumper crop, there are a lot of gaps in information which would be filled by the information centre, " KN Viswanathan, secretary, SICA, told Business Standard.

He also said the centre would mostly come up at Rajkot where land is being finalised or alternatively at Ahmedabad.

The association is also mulling to shift from the present international calibrated cotton (ICC) mode to high volume instrument (HVI) testing mode.