K Rangarajan was today elected the president of the South India Spinners Association (SISPA), from 2016 to 2018. N Murugesan, J Selvan and S Jagadesh Chandran were elected as Vice Presidents, at the 25th Annual General Body meeting of SISPA held in Coimbatore.

While G. Venkatesan was elected the Honorary Secretary, N Pradeep was chosen as the Joint Secretary, and VM Ramkumar, the treasurer, for the next two years.

In a resolution adopted at the meeting, SISPA thanked the Centre for the GST Bill, which would benefit the entire textile chain. To avoid any form of shortage in the availability of cotton to spinning mills throughout the year, SISPA requested the Centre to direct the concerned department to keep a buffer stock of 50 lakh bales at all times.

The meeting requested the government to bring out a comprehensive Cotton and Synthetic Fibre Policy to establish secure policy measures that would benefit cotton farmers, enable the spinning industry to grow consistently. SISPA urged the Tamil Nadu government to amend laws to permit low tension electricity consumers to purchase private power, as was in the case of high-tension electricity consumers.

A request was also made to the government to remove the one per cent market committee cess on cotton and waste cotton.