As the textile industry is hoping for a robust Indian cotton crop in the new season beginning this October, the Indian Texpreneurs Federation (ITF) conducted a survey among its members; entrepreneurs representing the entire value chain of Textile manufacturing to have an idea over a few key friction points regarding the upcoming cotton season.

Prabhu Dhamodharan, Convener, ITF said via a press release that in the survey, 99% of the entrepreneurs mentioned that cotton import duty will make Indian cotton prices artificially higher than International prices in the upcoming 2022 -23 cotton year whereas 81% of the participants mentioned that Indian farmers are not the real beneficiaries of the import duty imposition.

All of them also stated that Traders and MNCs are the real Beneficiaries of this protection and 27 % of the entrepreneurs picked lack of scientific data as the main reason for speculation.

ITF inferred from the survey that this lack of scientific data collection regarding Cotton bales output is the fundamental pain point, and it helps the speculative traders & trade.

The federation also said that the expensive raw material prices compared to that in the competing countries is making our entire value chain less competitive in Exports.

As a solution to these issues, ITF suggested the removal of Import Duty on Cotton to ensure a level playing field with its competing countries.

It also suggested extracting sales data in No. of bales with the help of GST portal with reference to ginners across India, and installation of SIM Card-based Smart Meters in Ginning mills to get real-time pressing data in No. of Bales.

These steps can curb speculation & also give big thrust to T&A Sector to gear up in capturing China plus one opportunity emerging in various developed markets.