Alleging adulteration of cotton by ginners in Gujarat, Southern India Mills' Association sought Textile Minister Irani's intervention to control the practice. The Union Textile Ministry should persist with the Gujarat Government and industry to bring down the adulteration levels.

Majority of the textile mills have reported that cotton purchased from Gujarat is adulterated causing grievous problems. A section of ginners in Gujarat are mixing cotton waste (comber noil - waste extracted by spinning mills) in the virgin cotton with profit motive, said the Southern India Mills' Association (SIMA).

Chairman of the association M. Senthil Kumar has said in a press release, textile mills in Tamil Nadu purchase over 100 lakh bales of cotton and only five lakh of this is from Tamil Nadu.

The Shankar-6 variety, which comes from Gujarat, is among the popular varieties bought by the mills as it is suitable to produce hosiery yarn for the garment sector.

For the last few years, the textile mills in the south are facing problem of adulteration in the cotton purchased from Gujarat as cotton waste is mixed with raw cotton.

The industry took up the issue with the Gujarat Government and the Gujarat Ginners’ Association in December last year. But, there is no action. Hence, the mills are reducing purchases from Gujarat.

The units are, instead, sourcing from States such as Telangana and also importing from African countries due to which cotton imports has gone up last season to 23 lakh bales from the usual five to six lakh bales.