Telangana leading cotton producer in South India, third largest in country

After Gujarat and Maharashtra, Telangana emerged as the third leading producer of cotton with 57.97 lakh bales production in 2020-21 and 48.78 lakh bales in 2021-22

Hyderabad: The initiatives taken up by the State government are bearing fruit with Telangana now emerging as the leading producer of cotton in South India and third largest producer in the country. After Gujarat and Maharashtra, Telangana emerged as the third leading producer of cotton with 57.97 lakh bales production in 2020-21 and 48.78 lakh bales in 2021-22.

Apart from production, Telangana is also the second leading State in terms of Labour Rate of Cotton paid to the workers. While, in Kerala the labour rate per hour is Rs 117.88, in Telangana it is Rs 98.36 per hour. In the BJP-ruled States like Gujarat and Karnataka it is Rs 35.16 and Rs 49.35 respectively.

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All these details were shared in the Lok Sabha by Union Minister of State for Textiles Darshana Jordash on Wednesday. In reply to a question by BRS MP Manne Srinivas Reddy, the Union Minister said India was a net cotton exporter country wherein production is more than consumption.

Considering the wider interest of the entire cotton value chain, including cotton farmers, the Union Government has kept export of cotton under Open General License (OGL) whereas there is an import duty of 11percent (including 5 percent Custom Duty, 5 percent AIDC and 1percent Cess) on import of cotton in India since February 1, 2021, he said.

In addition to this, free Trade Agreements have been signed with UAE and Australia to access export market, which came into force from May 1, 2022 and December 29, 2022 respectively, he said.

On the measures taken by Union government to support the cotton industry, the Union Minister said Ministry of Agriculture through ICAR-CICR, Nagpur had developed a Master plan titled ‘Targeting technologies to agro-ecological zones-large scale demonstrations of best practices to enhance cotton productivity’ and sanctioned Rs 41.87 crore for implementation of this project under national food Security Mission (NFSM). The project was aimed at targeting technologies such as High Density Planting System (HDPS), closer spacing and production technology for ELS cotton has been sanctioned by Department of Agriculture & Farmer’s Welfare (DoA&FW).

The Union Government also issued Quality Control Order (QCO) on February 28, 2023 for mandatory certification of cotton bales to augment supply of good quality cotton, he added.