PCGA demands bailout package for ginning sector

Central Executive Committee of Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA) has demanded a bailout package for ginning sector like Textile & farmers relief packages. In spite of being an important pillar of Textile sector, it is being treated step motherly. They criticised the government for what they called its step-motherly treatment towards the most important sector of national economy which is harmful to country's economy.
Criminal cases were instituted against more than a dozen ginners on the charge of adulteration in oil-cake (Khal). The meeting was also joined by think tank and chaired by PCGA chairman Dr Jeso Mal and attended by Senior Vice Chairman Suhail Mehmood Haral, Vice Chairman Prem Chand Kohistani, Group Chairman Haji Muhammad Akram, Former Chairmen Shehzad Ali Khan, Sheikh Muhammad Saeed, Chaudhry Masud A Majeed, Mahesh Kumar,Amanullah Qureshi, Hafeez Anwar, Mukhtar Ahmed Khan Baloch and other member Malik Sarfraz Nazim Awan, Muhammad Arshad, Rao Sadaruddin,Khawaja Muhammad Arshad, Muhammad Akbar, ShahidAli Chauhan, Qaiser Raza, Muhammad Saleem, Iftikhar Ali Javed, Mudassar Hussain, Mian Naveed Ayyaz, Muhammad Awais Hafeez, Mehtab Ahmed Cheema, Ilahi Bakhsh, Dawood Ahmed, Pawan Kumar, Khawaja Muhammad Azam, Khawaja Farooq Ahmed, Haji Sadiq Hussain, Mian Mehmood Ahmed Tariq, KhawajaRiaz Hussain Siddiqui, Muhammad Khalid, Khawaja Manazir, Abdul Rasheed, Chaudhry Waheed Arshad,Chaudhry Waheed Akhtar, Sheikh Muhammad Abbas Raza, Chaudhry Muhammad Sharif,Atique-ur-rehman, Shehzad Habib, Aqueel-ur-rehman Bhutta, Khalid Pervez Khan, Malik Zafar Iqbal, Chaudhry Khalid Rafiq, Seth Muhammad Aslam, Salman Maqbool, Muhammad Dawood, Ashok Kumar, Suresh Kumar, Mian Javed Tariq, and Haji Ghulam Yasin.
Cotton sector called for efforts that will give a boost to cotton production and will benefit the farmers and the industry. Pakistan has the largest area under cotton but its yield is lower. Regional cotton associations should focus on extension services to educate farmers and should also take up programmes that will help collect real time data, he said.
Pakistan is losing on cotton acreage, productivity, and quality in the last two seasons. Textile mills are apprehensive that the country might become a net importer of cotton and the mills might not get cotton at the right time even at high price. "We need united efforts to make the Government work on the white gold," he said. They said the cotton sector needs a system such as direct transfer of benefits for farmers. In the case of GM technology, the country is in cross roads. "All segments of the cotton sector should sit with the Government and the seed industry to thrash out issues," he said.
"Efforts are needed to save the cotton sector," Dr Jeso Mal said. He reminded the government that the sector was providing food to 180 million people of the country, livelihood to 46 percent of the population and earning 65 percent of foreign exchange. Besides, the sector was also supplying raw material to textile, sugar and cotton ginning industry, flour and rice mills. In addition, they said, the sector was consuming 100 per cent of chemical fertilisers, 98 percent of pesticides, 35 per cent of diesel, petrol and 20 percent of steel mill products. The sector provided jobs to millions of people and contributed 23 percent to GDP, they said. Agriculture is the most important sector of Pakistan as it provides raw material to the industry and contributes 21.4 percent to the GDP. It employs 45 percent of the labour force and is the most important source of foreign exchange earnings. Pakistan is the fourth largest producer of cotton after China, India and the United States and has about 8.7 percent share in world's cotton production.
Shehzad Ali Khan former Chairman of PCGA said Cotton ginning is a process of separating cotton seed from lint for further processing in textile industries. Cotton ginning is the weakest link in the textile chain. In the ginning process, fibre normally constitutes 33 percent, seed 59 percent and trash 8 percent of the cotton produced. This level of trash is high compared to other countries, causing a huge loss to ginners.
The ginning industry is considered to be the backbone of the textile sector and plays a significant role in the economy. Though Pakistan produces best quality cotton, but ginning factories get poor quality and contaminated cotton due to poor transportation and storage facilities and unskilled handling and harvesting.