Smt. Smriti Zubin Irani, Union Minister of Textiles and Women & Child Development launched the 1st ever Brand & Logo for Indian Cotton on 2nd World Cotton Day on 7th October, 2020. Now India’s premium Cotton would be known as ‘Kasturi Cotton’ in the world cotton Trade. The Kasturi Cotton brand will represent 

    • Whiteness

    • Brightness

    • Softness

    • Purity

    • Luster

    • Uniqueness

    • Indianness

Current Status

Cotton is one of the principal commercial crops of India and it provides livelihood to about 6.00 million cotton farmers. India is the 2nd largest cotton producer and the largest consumer of cotton in the world. India produces about 6.00 Million tons of cotton every year which is about 23% of the world cotton.  India produces about 51% of the total organic cotton production of the world, which demonstrates India’s effort towards sustainability.

To ensure sustainability, integrity and end-to-end traceability of the organic products, a certification system based on comparable international standards verified through internationally acceptable institutional system is required to be put in place. Accordingly, Ministry of Textiles through APEDA under Ministry of Commerce and Industry has prescribed a certification system for organic Cotton which will be introduced in phases in the entire textile value chain. Similarly, prescribing a certification system for non-organic Cotton has also been taken up with APEDA so that usages of cotton can be suitably augmented. 

Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) made highest ever Minimum Support Price (MSP) operation of cotton and hopeful that during the new cotton season, the procurement under MSP will be increased.   CCI has opened 430 procurement centres in all cotton growing states and payments are being made digitally to farmers’ account within 72 hours. Further, leveraging the technology, a    mobile app, “Cott-Ally” has been developed by CCI for providing latest news regarding weather condition, Crop situation and best farm practices. Discount of Rs.300/- per candy is being offered by CCI in its regular sale to MSME mills, Khadi and Village industry, Cooperative sector mills to enhance their competitiveness and efficiency. It was also stated that cotton may be used across all dimension of Technical Textiles.

World Cotton Day

    • On 7 October 2020, the WTO marks the first anniversary of World Cotton Day.

    • World Cotton Day provides the opportunity to recognize the importance of cotton as a global commodity grown in over 75 countries across five continents and to highlight its central role in job creation and maintaining economic stability in several least-developed countries. - Celebrations marking the day also aim to foster sustainable trade policies and to enable developing countries to benefit more from every step of the cotton value chain.

    • At the initiative of the Cotton-4 (Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali), the WTO hosted on 7th    October 2019 the launch of World Cotton Day in collaboration with the secretariats of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the International Trade Centre (ITC) and the International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC).

(The author is a trainer for Civil Services aspirants. The views expressed here are personal.)