Thirty five spinning mills, Members of Indian Texpreneurs Federation (ITF), an apex body of textile mills in the region, have formed a consortium to purchase quality cotton from ginners from Maharashtra and Telangana.

As a trial basis, the consortium, which required 11 lakh bales per year, has purchased two lakh bales this year, with zero trash and low level contamination, ITF Convenor Prabhu Dhamodharan told reporter here today.

Considering fruitful results, it was planned to buy four lakh bales during this cotton season, starting October, since raw material cost was the major factor in spinning mills manufacturing cost, ranging from 60 to 70 per cent, Prabhu said.

Even one per cent savings by way of good quality, better pricing, timely purchase will help spinning sector to reduce its cost of manufacturing, he said.

On advantage to ginners, he said that they can reach the top performing mills in a single platform and get a guarantee on professional transactions and timely payments and honoring contracts.

As the consortium was able to partner with more than 50 ginners in Telangana, Maharashtra, some 25 ginners are on a visit of mills in and around the city to know the trend and purchase plans.

Raveender Reddy from Telangana said that the state is expected to have cotton crop of 70 lakh bales and Maharashtra 100 lakh bales this season.

With more than one crore bales cotton requirement, Tamil Nadu mills need stronger partnership with cotton growing states, Reddy said adding that the visit here was to evaluate a strategy to focus more on contamination controlled cotton.