Coimbatore : Stakeholders in cotton and textile industry have expressed concern over the contamination in cotton and also lower yield in India compared to other countries.

Chairman and Managing Director of Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) P Alli Rani told the two-day 4th All India Cotton conference last night here that though India was the largest producer of cotton, the trash level in the raw material affected the end users.

In view of this, the Centre and the Textiles Ministry were taking efforts to reduce contamination in cotton for the benefit of the industry, she said. As a first step, Bureau of Indian Standards would work out a system for traceability of cotton arriving as bales from ginning factory, Alli Rani said.

The Government should be able to know the source of contamination and take preventive measures, she added.

Apart from this, once the second phase of Technology Mission on Cotton, as proposed by Textiles Ministry, was approved, the problem of contamination could be easily solved.

Both the cotton trade and industry should join hands to remove contamination, which was affecting the economy, and take efforts to create ‘clean cotton and truthful cotton,’ Kotak Commodities chairman, Suresh Kotak said at the conference on ‘india Cotton Scenario in the Current Context 2018-19’.

The conference is jointly organised by Indian Cotton Federation and Indian Cotton Association, Bathinda.

He said the industry should take efforts to increase the yield and productivity of cotton, which was 550 kg per hectare compared to 1,200 to 1,500 kg in other cotton-growing countries.

Tamil Nadu being a major cotton consumer with nearly 45 per cent textile mills, CCI should open a depot in the State either in Madurai or Coimbatore, deputy chairman of Confederation of Indian Textile Industry T Rajkumar said.