PUNJAB GETS CRUMBS FROM CENTRE’S TEXTILE SCHEMES; NO PACKAGE FOR COTTON GROWERS DESPITE DIVERSIFICATION PUSH: KBS SIDHU

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Punjab has received less than one per cent of the Centre’s textile skilling funds, and Punjab’s cotton growers have been given no relief package, even as experts keep urging the State’s farmers to move away from paddy. This was stated today by KBS Sidhu, IAS (Retd.), former Special Chief Secretary, Government of Punjab.

KBS Sidhu pointed out that the Union Textiles Ministry’s Samarth skilling scheme had trained 2,56,985 workers across India as of February 2024, of whom only 759 were in Punjab, about 0.3 per cent. Under the Amended Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme, Punjab’s units received ₹73 crore out of ₹1,868 crore released nationally between 2020-21 and 2023-24, or 3.9 per cent, while Gujarat took about half. No capital subsidy has been available to new textile units since March 2022.

“Ludhiana knits much of what India wears in winter, yet it has been almost invisible in the Centre’s textile schemes,” KBS Sidhu said. “Now the Centre is preparing a ₹25,000-crore Samarth 2.0. If it follows the old design, the money will again go to Tiruppur, Bengaluru and Surat, and Punjab will read about it in the business pages.”

On cotton, KBS Sidhu said the contradiction was stark. Punjab’s cotton area has fallen to about 80,000 hectares this kharif, the lowest on record, against more than five lakh hectares as recently as 2020. Farmers have been driven out by repeated pink bollworm attacks and uncertain procurement. Yet there is no Central package for cotton growers, and the State’s own 33 per cent seed subsidy has not reversed the slide.

Everyone tells the Punjab farmer to give up paddy and save the water table. But when he grows cotton, he gets pest attacks, no assured purchase, and now duty-free imports arriving just as his crop reaches the mandi,” KBS Sidhu said. “Diversification cannot be preached in the morning and undercut in the evening.”

He noted that the customs duty exemption on raw cotton imports lapses on 31 October and that an extension to December is being considered. Punjab’s kapas reaches the Malwa mandis from late September through December, so an extension would land squarely on the grower’s selling season, on top of record national stocks of about 93.59 lakh bales. Mandi prices have already eased from about ₹9,025 a quintal at Abohar in mid-September to around ₹8,200 at Bathinda in early October.

KBS Sidhu has today written jointly to the Union Secretaries of Textiles, Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Revenue, and Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, with a copy to the Chief Secretary, Punjab. He has sought a guaranteed share for under-served clusters such as Ludhiana in Samarth 2.0, eligibility for Ludhiana’s hosiery cluster under the new Textile Expansion and Employment Scheme, full procurement by the Cotton Corporation of India in all Malwa mandis, and limits on duty-free imports during the North Zone’s harvest months.

He urged the Punjab Government to submit its own proposal to the Centre before the scheme guidelines are notified.