November 28, 2001
'19'
| RAJYA SABHA |
IMPORT OF COTTON
To protect the interest of the cotton growers, the Government announces Minimum Support Price (MSP) of kapas (seed cotton). Whenever the market prices of kapas touch the MSP, the Cotton Corporation of India Ltd. (CCI) undertakes Support Price Operation and purchases kapas at MSP, without any quantitative limit, in all cotton growing states (except in Maharashtra where theRaw Cotton Monopoly Procurement Scheme of State Government is in operation). The loss, if any, incurred on account of support price operation is reimbursed to theCCI by the Government. That way, there is no loss to the cotton growers or the procurement agency. Moreover, the Government has launched the Technology Mission on Cotton to improve the productivity and quality of cotton as well as lowering the cost of cultivation.
Expecting a good crop, requests were received from State Governments to increase duty on import of cotton. The Government is closely monitoring the situation to take appropriate action, if any needed.
Production, consumption and import of cotton during the 1999-2000 & 2000-2001 cotton seasons are as under:
(in lakh bales of 170 kg. Each)
1999-2000 |
2000-2001 |
|
PRODUCTION |
156.00 |
140.00 |
IMPORT |
22.01 |
16.00 |
CONSUMPTION |
173.36 |
165.00 |
This information was given by the Minister of State for Textiles, Mr. V. Dhananjaya Kumar in a written reply to a question by Shri Raju Parmar today in Rajya Sabha.