'Govts have to be more proactive on policy initiatives'

The central and state governments need to be more proactive with policy initiatives towards sustaining the existing traditional industries, president of Indian Cotton Federation J Thulasidharan said on Sunday. Textile is the mother industry of the country with employment potential, economy build-up and monitory mechanism with a platform for regular interaction with stakeholders, big or small, is the need of the hour, he said in his address to the 40th annual general meeting of the federation.

The initiatives like 'Make in India' and 'Digital India' have given opportunities to foreign companies and domestic ones to do business, in line with the UN resolution for the millennium development goals, he said. This would uplift rural and urban India, he said referring to US President Donald Trump categorizing India as a developed nation instead of a developing nation.

Liberal policies of the government of India such as rationalization of GST (goods and services tax) has helped to a larger extent, yet more simplification was required, he said. Stating that grading and classing of cotton needed a close look, the federation president said once quality was assured, India can move to the next stage of branding of Indian cotton like the Supima (superior cotton grown in the US) of the USA' Contamination in cotton needed to be controlled at every stage and irrigation system has to improved by using better methods like drip irrigation and use of sprinklers as in Israel with quality water useful to cotton, he said.

Cotton is a seasonal crop, liberal finance at marginal interest should be made available through warehouse funding system by banking agencies, Thulasidharan said. In view of the normal monsoon, higher realization compared to other cash crops, increase in MSP and the interest was shown by the farmers in cotton would help increase the volume of crop, he added.

Thulasidharan was re-elected as president of the Indian Cotton Federation, P Nataraj, and K N Vishwanathan as its vice-presidents and Atul P Asher as secretary for the year 2019-20 at the meeting.