The Southern India Mills’ Association (SIMA) has submitted a master plan for increasing the annual cotton production from the level of 5 lakh bales to 25 lakh bales in a period of five years. The master plan suggests pilot projects with necessary funding support to showcase the capability of Tamil Nadu cotton farmers and replicate the same across the state.
Ravi Sam, Chairman, SIMA met the state’s Chief Minister M.K.Stalin and shared the details of the programme.
The master plan has been recommended to ensure adequate availability of quality cotton seeds of state-of-the-art technology capable of giving higher productivity and fibre quality matching international standards, giving more thrust to Extra Long Staple Cotton, the dire need of the nation.
The master plan also recommends global-based agronomy practices to be adopted, mechanised harvesting and water conservation to reduce the cost of cultivation, increase the productivity and meet the global sustainability norms.
The Chief Minister has assured to consider the master plan favourably and conduct meetings shortly in this regard.
It is pertinent to mention here that Tamil Nadu textiles and clothing industry predominantly cotton-based, accounts for one-third of the textile business size, 45 per cent of the spinning capacity, 70 per cent of the knitted garment capacity, 40 per cent of the home textiles manufacturing capacity, 22 per cent of the powerloom capacity, 12 per cent of handloom capacity and it is the only state having presence across the whole textile value chain.
The actual annual cotton requirement of the textile industry in Tamil Nadu is around 120 lakh bales (170 kgs per bale) while the state hardly produces 4 to 6 lakh bales.
SIMA Cotton Development and Research Association (SIMA CD & RA) is closely working with the Department of Agriculture and Government of Tamil Nadu for implementing various State and Central Government schemes relating to cotton development.
SIMA also submitted memorandum appealing the Chief Minister to strengthen textile processing, the weakest link in the entire textile value chain with sustainable and competent technology.Sustaining the processing manufacturing facility and enhancing capacity has become a challenge in Tamil Nadu with zero liquid discharge technology that has no solution for sledge/mixed salt disposal. It also requested to find a sustainable solution for water, a major raw material for textile processing.
SIMA has requested to personally intervene and resolve certain issues in kick-starting the SIMA textile processing park and showcase a sustainable technology to the globe and also replicate the same along the coastal area with marine outfall technology, as the state is not able to find a solution for disposing the common salt.