Textile: Authentic data, removal of import duty on cotton needed for textile sector: Survey

Authentic data and removal of import duty can enable growth for the textile sector in the upcoming cotton season, a survey carried out by a textile body said on Monday. The Indian Texpreneurs Federation (ITF) said the textile and apparel sector in the country is facing turbulence due to historic high cotton prices combined with demand contraction in developed markets, even as the industry is now hoping for a robust cotton crop harvest in the new season starting from October 2022, its convenor Prabhu Dhamodaran said in the survey report.

The textile body had conducted a survey among its member entrepreneurs representing a major value chain of textile manufacturing to get a sense about few key friction points regarding the upcoming cotton season.

Around 99 per cent of the entrepreneurs mentioned that cotton import duty will make Indian cotton prices higher than that prevailing in the international market.

On possible solutions, Dhamodharan suggested the removal of import duty on cotton to ensure level playing field with competing countries, extracting sales data in number of bales with the help of the GST portal with reference to ginners across India, and installing SIM card-based smart meters in ginning mills to get real-time pressing data in the number of cotton bales.