MULTAN, Aug 2: The body formed to restructure the Pakistan Central Cotton Committee has proposed a 100 per cent increase in cotton cess to overcome deficit in the annual budget of the committee and accumulate more funds for research.

A meeting of the PCCC's restructuring body was held in Karachi on Monday. It was presided over by Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission's member (Bio-sciences) Dr Kauser Abdullah Malik. Senior PCCC and federal agriculture ministry officials also attended the meting, besides some of cotton market stakeholders from the private sector.

Sources present in the meeting told Dawn that after a long discussion members of the restructuring body agreed to propose an increase in cotton cess to Rs22 per bale from the existing Rs11 per bale. The government collects the cess through the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association.

It is learnt that the federal textile commissioner initially opposed the proposal on the grounds that first the PCCC should improve its cess collection at the current rate and control its 'oversized' establishment expenditures to do away with the gap between expenditures and the income.

The sources said, however, a consensus about the cess increase was reached when a comparative statement of the PCCC's expense and income statements pertaining to the last five years was presented.

The comparative statement claimed that the ratio of operational/development expenses had reached to 18 per cent (of the PCCC's annual budget) against the establishment expenses from the previous level of 15 per cent.

To further augment the case for cess enhancement, it was argued that there had been no change in its slab since 1995. Moreover, the cess collection had also been improved down the years as if it was Rs66 million in the year 1999-2000, it had become Rs100 million in 2003-04.

A proposal to form a board of governors of the PCCC had also been floated in the meeting but reportedly it was rejected by the representatives of the federal agriculture ministry.

The PCCC authorities underlined the need to recruit some 134 more officials to fill the vacant posts but majority of the restructuring body members advised that first the committee should call back its 138 employees currently working on deputation with provincial organizations and then it should present the case for more recruitments. It was proposed that in future the PCCC should do recruitments only on contract basis.