Despite the problems faced on many fronts, the only advantage for the predominantly cotton based textile industry is availability of home grown cotton. The textile mills in Southern States, particularly Tamil Nadu mainly depend on cotton from Northern States like Gujarat, Maharashtra for the consumption. The textile mills in Tamil Nadu mainly prefer Shankar 6 variety of cotton grown in Gujarat as it is suitable to produce hosiery yarn for garment sector, especially Tirupur. Tamil Nadu consumes 100 to 120 lakh bales of cotton annually while producing only around 5 lakh bales.
Majority of the textile mills have reported that cotton purchased from Gujarat is adulterated causing grievous problems. A section of ginners in Gujarat are mixing cotton waste (comber noil – waste extracted by spinning mills) in the virgin cotton with profit motive which affects the image of Gujarat and also the strenuous efforts put in by the farmers not only in the domestic market, but also in the international market.
In a Press Release issued recently, Mr.M.Senthilkumar, Chairman, The Southern India Mills’ Association (SIMA) has stated that the industry has been facing the problem of adulteration for the last few years and the magnitude has become several fold from the last cotton season. He has stated that this issue was brought to the notice of the Minister of Agriculture, Government of Gujarat and the Gujarat Ginners Association in December 2015. However, there was no action on the part of the Gujarat Government. As a result, the textile mills have reduced the volume of purchase from Gujarat by 40 to 50% and are sourcing from Telangana besides importing from countries like West Africa and Australia. Normally, the textile mills used to import five to six lakh bales of cotton to meet the customers’ requirements, especially the Extra Long Staple (ELS) cotton. But in the last cotton season, due to adulteration, 23 lakh bales of cotton were imported incurring cost towards foreign exchange of Rs.3600 crores for the additional 17 lakh bales. SIMA Chief has mentioned that since adulteration still exists, the association has sent a representation to the Union Textile Minister, Ms. Smriti Zubin Irani requesting her intervention and prevail on the Gujarat Government to take necessary steps to curb this practice followed by certain section of the ginners in Gujarat, in the interests of cotton farmers, traders, spinners and also the knitted garment manufacturers across the nation.