Major blow to cotton farmers in Telangana as ginning mills stop purchases

The union leaders who met on Sunday wrote a letter to Union Minister Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and the CCI CMD regarding the suspension of cotton purchases.

Hyderabad: Cotton farmers in the State, who were already distressed, suffered yet another blow with Telangana Cotton and Ginning Mills Association deciding not to buy their produce in protest against the stance of the Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) and the State government.

The union leaders who met on Sunday wrote a letter to Union Minister Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and the CCI CMD regarding the suspension of cotton purchases. The letter stated that they have decided to stop purchasing cotton from farmers in protest against the new norms introduced by the CCI in the purchase of cotton.

---

The decision taken by CCI two days ago has become a blow to both mills and farmers. Until recently cotton was purchased from 318 ginning mills across the State, but from Saturday, the CCI started implementing a new policy. According to the new policy, the mills in a district would be assigned a serial number like L1, L2, L3 and divided them into clusters and only after completion of capacity purchases in the first mill, purchases in other mills would be taken up. Till then there will be no purchases in the rest of the mills.

There are 23 ginning mills in Nalgonda district and purchases are being made in only 7 mills. Due to this, the farmers in the rest of the mills had to come to these seven mills. Thus the burden of transportation is falling on the farmers. Ginning mills and farmers are demanding that this new policy be withdrawn.

The ginning mill owners alleged that the CCI officials had introduced the new norms to avoid the burden of cotton purchase.