Draft Cotton Trade Bill circulated for discussions: Anand Sharma

NEW DELHI: A draft Bill seeking to make it mandatory for the domestic raw cotton users to provide information for gathering reliable and timely data on the commodity has been circulated for discussions.

The Textiles Ministry today said it has circulated the draft Cotton Trade (Development and Regulation) Bill, 2012, to state governments for consultation.

The Bill seeks to make it mandatory for the users of raw-cotton within the country to provide information on and tag cotton bales to enable collection of reliable and timely information to support policy and planning, Minister of Textiles Anand Sharma said in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha.

"The drafted Cotton Trade (Development and Regulation) Bill, 2012, has been discussed with the members of the Cotton Advisory Board on April 18 and circulated to the state governments for consultation," he said.

In view of removal of the textile items from the purview of the Essential Commodities Act, 1955, there is no longer any statutory frame work for collecting data on the basis of which reliable estimates can be made regarding the distribution and consumption of raw-cotton in the country, he said.