MULTAN: Seed cotton (Phutti) equivalent to over 5.645 million or exactly 5,645,967 bales have reached ginning factories across the country till May 1, 2021.

According to final fortnightly report of Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA) for the cotton season 2020-21 released to media on Monday, Punjab arrival figures stood at 3.5 million or 3,509,798 bales while Sindh contributed over 2.1 million or 2,136,169 bales. PCGA could not release fortnightly reports during Apr 2021 due to the pandemic and the final report released Monday does not carry last year’s statistics for the month of April. The PCGA report says, “Data was not collected last year on May 1, 2020 due to Covid-19”. Hence, final report does not show comparison of today’s statistics with last year’s data.

However, PCGA’s mid March 2021 report does indicate the shortfall then stood at 34.16 per cent compared to corresponding period i.e year 2020, when arrivals were recorded 8.57 million bales. Cotton production plunged new low this year prompting the governments to take initiatives to revive past production patterns and move forward to touch new highs. Vice President, Pakistan Central Cotton Committee (PCCC) Dr Muhammad Ali Talpur had said a few days ago that a proposal was under consideration by the govt to announce cotton support price to encourage farmers.