Telangana Farmers In Soup As CCI Stops Buying Cotton
No purchase in the last 20 days at several places; Farmers say not even 10% cotton procured in Telangana till now
A long queue of tractors, other vehicles loaded with cotton seen at a cotton mill in Chennur in Mancherial district on Monday
In an order issued on July 29, 2024, the CCI said the central government fixed the support price at Rs 7,121 per quintal for medium staple cotton and at Rs 7,521 per quintal for long staple cotton, both of fair average quality, for the cotton season 2024-25
Hyderabad: Scores of cotton farmers in several parts of Telangana are in a soup now as the Cotton Corporation of India (CCI), the nodal agency to procure cotton from farmers at the minimum support price (MSP), abruptly stopped buying cotton at many procurement centres.
Farmers say not even 10 per cent of cotton has been procured from farmers till now even though harvesting has peaked. As a consequence, many farmers are facing financial hardships, they lament.
“We don’t know what to do now. Cotton Corporation has not been buying cotton from farmers for the past 20 days saying ‘there is no signal’ at the procurement centres. Private traders and some millers are offering just Rs6,200 per quintal against the minimum support price of Rs7,100. We will lose Rs1 lakh if we sell 100 quintals to private traders,” Prabhakar, a cotton farmer from old Karimnagar district, told Bizz Buzz. According to another farmer, dozens of trucks and tractors loaded with cotton have been waiting at cotton mills designated as procurement points by CCI.
“People manning these centres say they will start buying cotton once the signal is restored. We have been hearing this excuse for the past few weeks. There is no clarity yet as to when the CCI will resume procurement. But we are hearing that procurement is going on at a faster pace in Maharashtra,” the farmer pointed out.
In an order issued on July 29, 2024, the CCI said the central government fixed the support price at Rs7,121 per quintal for medium staple cotton and at Rs7,521 per quintal for long staple cotton, both of fair average quality, for the cotton season 2024-25. The overall support price ranges from Rs6,621 to Rs8,721, depending on the variety. But farmers get these prices only if they sell their cotton to CCI. However, there is a limit of 12 quintals of cotton per acre a land-owning farmer can sell. But, tenant farmers are not eligible to sell their cotton to CCI on their own names.
According to an estimate by the Cotton Association of India, all India cotton sowing area for the crop year 2024-2025 has reached 112.947 lakh hectares (as in September 2024), down 8.7 per cent from 123.709 lakh hectares in the preceding year. In Telangana too, the cotton sowing area came down by 2.28 per cent to 20.2 lakh hectares this season from 20.7 lakh hectares last season.
“As many as 200 vehicles loaded with cotton have been waiting at various mills in Chennur in Mancherial district. Farmers are forced to cough up waiting charges for vehicles as CCI is not buying cotton. We even organised a dharna, demanding immediate procurement, but no response from CCI till now,” Mahender, a farmer from a village near Chennur, said.
Vexed with the indifferent attitude of CCI, some farmers took their vehicles back to private traders and sold cotton at lower prices, he added.
CCI has branches at Adilabad, Warangal and Mahbubnagar in Telangana. Bizz Buzz’s efforts to reach out to these offices failed as no one bothered to take calls.
