Maharashtra to brand its own cotton variety to beat Gujarat's Shankar in export markets

PUNE: Maharashtra has decided to promote its own cotton variety to compete with Gujarat's Shankar variety in the export markets.

Shankar is the most exported Indian cotton variety from Gujarat. A Chinese delegation of traders is currently on a visit to Jalgaon in Maharashtra.

For the last several years, Maharashtra ginners have been complaining that Gujarat traders buy cotton from Maharashtra and sell it at higher price as Shankar variety.

"Gujarat traders buy our cotton cheaper by avoiding taxes. Even after many efforts, we have not been able to stop it. We could not export our cotton directly because of the absence of branding," said Pradip Jain, president of the Khandesh Ginpress Association.

Gujarat is the top cotton producer in India followed by Maharashtra, which has the highest area under cotton in the country. The Khandesh area of north Maharashtra, consisting of Jalgaon, Dhule and Nandurbar, is bordering Gujarat and has early and irrigated cotton as against Vidarbha and Marathwada, which have rain-fed cotton cultivation.

Two months ago, a delegation of 50 people from Maharashtra visited China with samples of Maharashtra cotton. "We have appointed a certification agency for branding our cotton. Specific parameters have been decided for the cotton to be labelled as Mahacot. The length of Mahacot cotton is 29 mm as against 28.5 mm of Shankar cotton," said Jain.

The Khandesh traders will also launch online trading of Mahacot cotton from Monday under a tie up with the National Spot Exchange. Though the cotton in Khandesh belt is harvested early, actual market arrivals are much less as the farmers wait for the prices to improve.