GoM meet to decide to lift ban on cotton exports: Patel

Senior leader and Congress president Sonia Gandhi's political secretary Ahmed Patel today said that a Group of Ministers at a meeting on June 7 will take decision over lifting the ban on cotton export raised by farmers and ginning units from Gujarat.

Talking to PTI, Patel said, " I discussed this issue with Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee last night and narrated hardships being faced by farmers and ginning units from Gujarat due to the export cap of 55 lakh bales."

Patel said he supported the demand of state farmers to immediately allot an export quota of 15 lakh bales to Gujarat as a special case which produces one third of cotton in the country. The state produced 104.55-lakh bales of cotton (one bale equals to 170 kg) this year.

The steep decline in prices of cotton in the domestic market over the last few months has hit farmers hard as they do not have any mechanism for storage of cotton and are compelled to sell their crops at low prices.