Textile Minister Santosh Gangwar said that Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) has been asked to step up its procurement operations by opening more centres in the country to speed up buying of raw cotton from farmers at Minimum Support Price (MSP). The CCI has so far bought 250,000 bales of 170 kg each in the current season, mostly from the southern states. Recently, the organization commenced procuring cotton at MSP in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in interest of the farmers. 58,000 bales of cotton were procured from these two states as the market price has fallen below the MSP of Rs. 4,050 per quintal.
