The Vice President was inaugurating the CITI-CDRA Golden Jubilee Celebrations from Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi today. Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI) is a leading industry chamber of the textile sector in India and the Cotton Development and Research Association (CDRA) is the extension arm of CITI, undertaking various seed development and extension activities in the cotton sector.
On this occasion, Shri Naidu conferred awards to excelling cotton scientists and farmers in CITI-CDRA Project Areas. He also released a Coffee Table Book – ‘Millennial Shades of Cotton’ at the event.
Shri Piyush Goyal, Hon’ble Union Minister of Textiles, Commerce & Industry, Consumer Affairs and Food & Public Distribution, Shri T. Rajkumar, Chairman, CITI, Shri P. D. Patodia, Chairman, Standing Committee on Cotton of CITI-CDRA, Shri Rakesh Mehra, Deputy Chairman, CITI, Shri Upendra Prasad Singh, Secretary, Ministry of Textiles, Shri Prem Malik, Co-Chairman, Standing Committee on Cotton of CITI CDRA and other dignitaries were present during the event.
Shri Naidu expressed his concern over that despite being the largest cotton producer (23%) in the world and having the highest area under cotton cultivation (39% of world area), the yield per hectare in India remained at a low of 460 kg lint per hectare when compared to the world average of 800 kg lint per hectare. To address this, he called for improving the planting density, taking up mechanization of cotton harvest and giving a thrust to agronomy research. While noting India’s improvement in export competitiveness of traditional textiles, Shri Naidu said “we cannot ignore sunrise sectors such as technical textiles, which are seeing a rapid rise in demand across the world”.
Recalling the benefits of the first Technology Mission on Cotton, the Vice President said there is every need to renew the Mission in an upgraded format. “We need to improve our seed technology, increase yield, adopt global best practices, produce clean and high-quality cotton and brand it better to improve the farmers’ income”, Shri Naidu observed.
The Vice President noted that while India has a strong global footprint in cotton yarn, it has to improve its competitiveness in fabrics and apparel. He called for hand-holding small firms and upskilling textile workers to give a fillip to the sector. He said government schemes such as the Amended – Technology Up-gradation Fund Scheme (A-TUFS) and SAMARTH (Scheme for Capacity Building in the Textile Sector) are aimed at achieving these objectives.
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