Union Minister of Textiles, Commerce & Industry, Consumer Affairs and Food & Public Distribution, Piyush Goyal approved the Quality Control Order (QCO) for mandatory certification of cotton bales under specification No. IS12171: 2019-Cotton Bales today. The QCO has been vetted by Ministry of Law & Justice and will be notified shortly.
The Union Minister presided over the fifth interactive meeting with the Textile Advisory Group (TAG) in New Delhi to review progress of initiatives for cotton value chain. Shri Goyal pointed out that quality of Indian cotton fibre is beneficial for farmers and industry.
He stressed that branding of Indian Cotton will add great value to the entire cotton value chain from farmers, Ginners to cotton users, right up to the consumers. MoU has been signed on 15.12.2022 between the CCI and TEXPROCIL to encourage the Trade and Industry to work on the principle of self-regulation by owning complete responsibility of Traceability, Certification and Branding of “KASTURI Cotton India” with the project target period of 2022-23 to 2024-24. Steering Committee and Apex Committee have been constituted and the work of TEXPROCIL will begin in the current cotton season.
Central Institute for Cotton Research (CICR) prepared a pilot project targeting technologies to agro-climatic zones-large scale demonstrations of best practices to enhance cotton productivity.
Shri Goyal emphasized strengthening testing facility needed to conform to KASTURI standards, DNA testing and traceability. He assured that adequate modern testing facilities would be created through BIS and TRAs.
Smt. Rachna Shah, Secretary, Textiles set the context by elaborating on the need for this wide based interaction with Textile Value Chain. The actions initiated subsequent to the points that emerged from the last interactive meetings held on 15.12.2022 at Varanasi were presented by Joint Secretary (Fibre).
Smt. Darshana V. Jardosh, Hon’ble Minister of State for Textiles and Railways, along with other senior officials from related Ministries and cotton value chain stakeholders were present during the meeting.
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