The Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) will open 91 purchasing centres in Andhra Pradesh for the 2013-14 season. “These centres will buy the cotton damaged in the recent cyclones and floods, besides procuring cotton from other parts of the State,” Kanna Laskshminarayana, Andhra Pradesh Minister for Agriculture, said.

Cyclones and floods had damaged the cotton crop in about seven lakh hectares or one-third of the acreage of 22 lakh hectares. The State is in the process of enumeration of the final tally of crop losses.

Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy and the Agriculture Minister wrote to the Union Minister for Textiles, Kavuri Sambasiva Rao, asking him to open additional purchase centres keeping in view the extensive damage caused by natural calamities in the last two months.

Guntur and Khammam will have eight centres each, followed by Warangal with 11, Kariminagar 12 and Adilabad 18, the Minister said in a statement.

kurmanath.kanchi@thehindu.co.in