Indian textile industry has hailed the launch of Indian Cotton Brand ‘Kasturi’ and hopes that it will help Indian textile manufacturers and exporters to draw better price realisation on their cotton products in the international markets.
Welcoming the initiative, T. Rajkumar, Chairman, Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI), said that Indian exporters at present do not get better prices on the cotton products due to poor quality of cotton fibre and contaminated cotton.
Hence, launching of the Indian cotton brand will enable the Indian cotton value chain to improve the cotton quality and emerge as one of the best in the world and facilitate in producing high value-added products out of the same to sustain the growth.
He also appealed to the Prime Minister to announce the Technology Mission on Cotton in a revised format with the Mission Mode approach that has already been recommended by the Union Minister of Textiles.
Also Read: India has its own cotton brand ‘Kasturi’
India accounts for 38 per cent of the world area under cotton and the ongoing measures and various initiatives taken by the Government to improve productivity, quality and branding of Indian cotton and its products across the value chain will have a bright future and make Indian cotton globally competitive.
It is pertinent to mention here that there has been a 25 to 30 per cent drop in cotton consumption across the globe as well as in India due to COVID-19 pandemic.
T. Rajkumar stated that excess cotton stock to the tune of three to four times of normal stock level would be a challenge for India and the Textile Ministry is already taking necessary steps to boost the exports of all products across the value chain apart from increasing the consumption domestically, e.g., cotton face mask and cotton lining materials in PPE and increased medical textiles consumption have thrown very good opportunity for India.
Also Read: World celebrating Cotton Day today; does India have the edge?
