Gear up for 2022 cotton procurement, minister tells marketing, CCI officials

Hyderabad: State Agriculture Minister S Niranjan Reddy on Monday asked officials to gear up for procurement of cotton.

Addressing a review meeting on cotton procurement process here, he said farmers grew cotton in 50 lakh acres.

The minister pointed out that farmers have cultivated cotton despite adverse climatic conditions. "Though this led to a decrease in yield, cotton is expected to fetch a good price in the domestic as well as international market", he added.

Reddy said the current market price of cotton was Rs 8,000/quintal. He asked officials of the Marketing department and Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) to ensure that cotton farmers will get more than the minimum support price of Rs 6,380.

The minister stated that the current scenario across the world indicates that cotton is all set to be in great demand in future. "Farmers should move forward for increasing crop yield of cotton".

Similarly, he asked owners of ginning mills to become full stakeholders in cotton procurement. Reddy said so far district collectors were directed to notify the 313 identified ginning mills for the procurement. "It is proposed that 121 agriculture market yards would function as the CCI procurement centres".

He asked the CCI to install software, electronic instruments and moisture scaling machines."On its part, the Marketing department is asked to deploy the necessary staff at the procurement centres" The minister asked the CCI managers to prepare the procurement schedule ensuring that the centres function for six days a week.

Directions were also given for appointment of State and district-level monitoring committees to oversee the procurement process. The participating owners of the ginning mills have expressed their willingness to take part in the CCI tenders.

The minister sought proposals to establish a quality testing lab under the aegis of the State marketing committee. In turn, it will help farmers to fetch better returns and also benefit the ginning mills.

The CCI officials who participated in the meeting assured to look into the problems of ginning mills and the CCI and will take steps to solve them.