With cotton prices shooting up, the Textile Ministry to keep prices under check has directed the Cotton Corporation of India to sell cotton purchased by it. CCI will start e-sale of cotton stock with it to to micro, small and medium-scale (MSMS) textile mills in a couple of days directly at minimum support price, according to the official.

The official said that the CCI purchased 8.4 lakh bales of cotton at minimum support price this year. It has supplied nearly two lakh bales to National Textile Corporation and state co-operative mills. It had also sold about 1.5 lakh bales a month over the last four months through e-auction.

Now, the CCI has 27,000 bales with it and these will be sold to small and medium-scale mills. The sales will be through e-auction and only small and medium-scale mills will be able to bid for the stocks. This will benefit the small and medium-scale mills, the official said.

The textile mills here welcomed the direction from the ministry. M. Senthil Kumar, Chairman, Southern India Mills’ Association said that this will bring stability to prices and meet the raw material requirement of the smaller mills.

Mr. C.Varadarajan, President, South India Spinners Association, said that the cost of cotton purchased from CCI will be lower than the current market rate.

The main reason for the spiralling prices was CCI selling cotton to multi national companies and large buyers.

The CCI should sell cotton at just minimum support price and the cost incurred for storing the cotton till now to the domestic textile mills so that prices come down.