ISLAMABAD, Sept 22: The committee on Clean Cotton Programme (CCP) on Thursday proposed payment of premium to growers and ginners to encourage production of contamination-free cotton.

A senior official told Dawn that the committee proposed an amount Rs50 to the growers and Rs30 to the ginners per maund on production of clean cotton as per international standards.

The CCP body meeting was headed by Textile Industry Minister Mushtaq Ali Cheema and attended by Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar Khan and senior officials of the ministries concerned.

The proposal the committee among others would be approved by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz in the next cabinet meeting, added the official.

The committee decided that the Trading Corporation of Pakistan would purchase 310,000 bales of clean cotton from 31 selected ginning factories. Of these 31 factories, 22 would be selected from Punjab, seven from Sindh and two from Balochistan. Currently, there are 1,100 ginning factories working in the country.

The scheme of payment of premium will be supervised by a team comprising of officers from the provincial governments concerned, the ministry of food and agriculture and representatives of the Pakistan Cotton Standard Institute and the TCP. The factories would be selected by a team comprising of officers from the provincial governments concerned, the PCSI and the TCP.

It was also decided that from next year the scheme would be extended to all factories across the country to promote the production of clean cotton. The committee directed the provincial governments to give the premium to those factories that would fulfil all standards as prescribed for the scheme.

An official announcement said that it was also decided that the PCSI would provide training to representatives of growers, ginners and nominees of provincial and federal agricultural departments to produce classers and selectors of cotton. The PCSI has already provided training to 100 classers and 120 selectors and continues to produce more classers and selectors in this field.

The meeting discussed and reviewed a proposal of the sub-committee report for producing clean and contamination-free cotton in details. Textile Secretary Syed Masood Alam Rizvi presented the report of the sub-committee constituted to prepare a strategy to encourage the growers and ginners for producing clean cotton.