With prices of cotton candy soaring and expected to touch Rs 30,000 mark and yarn ranging high around Rs 170 (40s count), the Union textiles ministry will act tough against hoarders who illegally hoard the input commodities to artificially jack up the prices in the market, said Dayanidhi Maran, Union minister of textiles.
?The price of yarn has increased from 24% to 30% and cotton price steadily increasing. The price rise of the duo items is playing spoilsport on sectors like textile handlooms and the ministry will take stern measures against hoarders, he said.
On plans to expand the cotton sales depot scheme of Cotton Corporation of India, he told FE that the ministry has already opened enough such depots to sell cotton bales directly to mills with the exemption of VAT and central sales tax levies in textile hubs like Coimbatore and Rajapalayam in Tamil Nadu. Speaking about the handlooms and handicrafts sectors that are part of his ministerial ambit, he said the sector should not be dollar crazy and get rupee crazy by producing fashionable goods that are a rage among younger population with higher purchasing power.
In a bid to boost the retail sales of handloom and handicrafts produced by traditional artisans and hand weavers in state capital Chennai of Tamil Nadu, the textile ministry has sanctioned a Chennai Haat akin to Dilli Haat (craft bazaar) to provide selling space to various ethnic traditional artisans and their wares, Maran said.