NEW DELHI, June 17: Industry body Ficci has requested the Textiles Ministry to ensure that the draft Cotton Trade Bill, which seeks to provide accurate data collection on natural fibre production, does not lead to over regulation of cotton trade.
“The Textiles Ministry should ensure that the draft Bill does not lead to over regulation of cotton trade and at the same time results in an independent system of data collection for the natural fibre,” Ficci said.
Ficci said the current form of Bill put focus on regulation of the industry rather than developing an independent system of data collection.
“There is a need for making amendments in these clauses of the Bill to ensure that industry can easily implement and follow it,” it said.
It said the Bill also aims at monitoring cotton demand and supply in the country and ensuring that minimum standards for packaging are followed in cotton ginning and pressing.
The objective of the Bill should be to build a robust and an independent market intelligence system for statistics on cotton production and consumption as they are important for the growth of the textiles industry, the chamber said.
At present, there is no statutory framework for collecting
the statistical data on cotton from ginning and pressing factories as well as cotton yarn output from the textiles mills.
Ficci further said the Bill places heavy burden of compliance on stakeholders.
“Every ginning factory has to maintain registers as prescribed by the Textiles Commissioner. Also, monthly returns have to be submitted by cotton ginning factories and textiles mills which will further add to the compliance burden on the industry,” it said.
Besides, the Bill mandates that every owner or occupier of a cotton processing factory would produce the ginning register for inspection whenever required to do so. Also, the penalties proposed in the Bill are too harsh leading to two years of imprisonment in case of non-compliance.
“It should be based on self-certification system rather than on inspection as proposed in the Bill,” Ficci said. (PTI)
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