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G. Gurumurthy

Though the market intervetion by CCI has helped improve prices, growers have still chosen to sell their produce to local traders.

Coimbatore , Aug 15

WITH daily arrivals of seeded cotton of summer crop slowing down, Cotton Corporation of India (CCI), which has been operating minimum support price (MSP) purchases in Tamil Nadu for the past two months, may halt its procurement for the season soon.

CCI officials told Business Line that the corporation might wind up its MSP purchase of kappas or raw cotton in a week or so.

Firstly, the summer harvest of cotton in major cotton tracts have slowed down and the quality arriving at the procurement centres too have started declining indicating that the season is drawing to a close, the officials say.

CCI stepped into MSP procurement of cotton in the State in June following complaints from farmers in southern Tamil Nadu that cotton prices had declined below the MSP.

The corporation opened three purchase centres at Rajapalayam, Paramakudi and Kumbakonam and so far, 500 bales have been procured in these centres.

While the market intervention by CCI has helped to improve the price sentiment in the market to some extent during this season, the cotton growers preference in interior southern Tamil Nadu not to carry their produce to regulated market yards and instead to sell to the local traders is said to be the main reason for the lower procurement realised at the CCI centres.

In the meantime, the summer cotton output in the State is anticipated to rise to the five lakh bales or even slightly more than that, against the normal three lakh or 3.5 lakh bales. The more than the normal size of the summer cotton for the State is attributed to the large scale cultivation of Bt cotton variety.

According to Mr K.N. Viswanathan, Secretary, South India Cotton Association, the higher summer cotton output this year is based on the rate of the daily arrivals reported in primary market yards and a consistently higher daily arrival has been observed in these centres throughout last month when the average arrival spurted from the normal 9,000 bales to 16,000 bales.

However, Mr Viswanathan felt that the increase in the size of the crop or its volume this year could be assessed only by next month-end.

He was also of the view that though the prices were low this year compared with the previous year, the higher yield and relatively easy saleability of their produce on account of steady off-take from the spinning mills had blunted the farmers grouse on overall price realisation, a phenomenon that used to be a market aberration in the early years.

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