Textile mills in Telengana want at least 50,000 bales of cotton a day to be allocated through e-auction at reasonable market prices. There are a large number of spinning and textile mills in Telengana. They feel the CCI is not offering sufficient cotton to them. The CCI is said to be holding 83 lakh bales of cotton all over India, and if this is so, this will suffice the mills’ consumption for another four to five months.

Telengana has about 10 lakh spindles of which eight lakh run on cotton and the balance on other fibers like synthetic and viscose. Poor availability of cotton is forcing mills to run on a partial basis or to procure from states like Maharashtra or Madhya Pradesh, an unviable option.

Mills in Telengana say cotton lint sales policy adopted by the CCI is not consumer friendly. They say that against a total arrival of about 57 lakh bales in Telengana, the CCI has purchased 50 lakh bales, amounting to 90 per cent of the total arrivals of raw cotton from the state. There has been a huge increase in price of cotton, making the total textile industry unviable.

The Telengana industry is labor and capital intensive, employing thousands of rural women workers.