The Hindu Business Line : SICA to set up info centre, testing lab in Gujarat

The South India Cotton Association (SICA) is planning to open a cotton information centre and also a cotton testing facility in Gujarat. The proposed facilities may be located either in Rajkot or Ahmedabad.

The idea behind SICA's move to have an information/testing centre in Gujarat is to provide the market-related information for the cotton trade and textile industry in South India which sources huge volume of cotton supplies from Gujarat, particularly the Sankar-6 variety.

Need to set up

Disclosing this to press persons here at the sidelines of the SICA's 27th annual general meeting, the Association Secretary, Mr K.N. Viswanathan, said traditionally bulk of the Gujarat's Shankar variety finds their way to South-based textile units and the projected cotton production from Gujarat this season is expected to be one crore bales.

Of this nearly 80 per cent would be either marketed in the South or to be exported. In this scenario, his association felt the need to set up an information centre and may budget some Rs 40 lakh for establishing the centre.

Another key deliberation at the SICA's annual general meeting,is the association's move towards ushering a shift in the cotton testing standards from the present international calibrated cotton (ICC) mode to high volume instrument (HVI) testing mode.

While bulk of global cotton transactions are being adhered to the HVI testing mode, 90 per cent of domestic cotton trade is still done through the ICC mode. ` The association would work towards bringing in consensus to pressure the Textile Ministry to officially adopt to the HVI mode, he said.