To enhance the cost competitiveness of the cotton value chain, CITI recommends certain policy measures such as removal of import duty on all varieties of cotton, including cotton waste, enhancement of cotton productivity with a focus on specialised seed varieties like HTBt cotton seeds, exempting fibers and yarns not available domestically from the scope of Quality Control Orders (QCOs) to ensure access to essential raw materials without regulatory hindrances.
Further CITI recommends, enabling provisions for exempting inputs imported by Advance Authorisation holders, EoU, and SEZ units from the mandatory QCOs issued by the Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals (for polyester fiber/filament/yarn), in line with the exemptions provided by the Ministry of Textiles.
It also urges for an establishment of a committee to ensure the availability of all types of raw materials (fiber/yarns), with periodic reviews of the emerging requirements of specialised fiber/yarn categories that may be exempted from QCOs due to supply, demand, or price gaps.
Other recommendations include ensuring a smooth supply of all raw materials at internationally competitive prices, lowering standard input and output norms (SION) for cotton blended with MMF and VSF, addressing GST duty inversion in the MMF value chain to avoid capital blockage, announcing separate Harmonized System of Nomenclature (HSN) codes for recycled MMF-based products to promote sustainable products and expanding the viscose manufacturing hub to states like Tamil Nadu and other textile manufacturing clusters to reduce logistic costs.
