MULTAN, May 8: The Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock could not even decide the date of the mandatory meeting of the board of directors of the Pakistan Cotton Standard Institute that otherwise should have been held before May 1 this year.

According to the Cotton Standardization Ordinance, 2002, the PCSI board should meet at least twice in a year provided that not more than a period of six months should intervene between its two meetings. The last meeting of the board was held on November 1 last year.

The ordinance was promulgated on October 4, 2002. The PCSI has been given a central role under the ordinance to set cotton standards in the country.

A board of directors for the PCSI was notified immediately after the promulgation of the ordinance with the secretary Minfal as its chairman. The board has representation from both public and private sectors.

Among the public sector, one representative each from the federal ministries of Agriculture, Commerce and Finance are on the PCSI board besides the representation of Pakistan Central Cotton Committee, agriculture departments of the four provinces, Trading Corporation of Pakistan and Textile Commissioner Organization.

From the private sector, All Pakistan Textile Mills Association, Karachi Cotton Association, Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association and the growers from federal and provincial territories are on the board.

Sources on the PCSI board told Dawn that though the first three meetings of the PCSI directors were held after regular intervals but this time there were no signs that the meeting could be held even in near future. They said according to the rules, agenda of the board meeting should be distributed among the members at least 15 days prior to the date of the meeting.

In the first meeting of the board held on November 16, 2002, in Karachi, an executive committee having the TCP chief Masood Alam Rizvi as its chairman was constituted to frame cotton standardization rules and propose restructuring of the PCSI.

The executive committee held four meetings before the second PCSI board meeting held on May 12, 2003, and came out with a number of suggestions for the purpose it was mandated. Among the proposals was a levy of Rs10 per bale of cotton to amass resources to run PCSI to carry out the task of establishing cotton standards in the country. The second meeting of the PCSI board though remained by and large inconclusive regarding proposals floated by the executive committee but in an interesting move a special sub-committee was formed with agriculture development commissioner Dr Muhammad Haneef as its head to finalize proposals to determine the role of PCSI in cotton standardization.

The special sub-committee was, however, disbanded in the third PCSI board meeting held on November 1, 2003, when its suggestions were found against the spirit of the CSO. The sub-committee had termed the proposed regulatory role of the PCSI as against the present government's policy of deregulation and market economy and was of the opinion that the standardization must be a volunteer exercise.

The board observed that the cotton standardization could not be left to the mere "volunteer exercise" of the growers and ginners and that there should be a monitoring body to fashion cotton grading system in the country.

It was decided in the third PCSI board meeting that the provincial governments should amend their respective Cotton Control Acts to make it mandatory for the ginners to mark each bale of cotton they pressed with grade and staple length.

District of Multan, Vehari, Rahim Yar Khan in Punjab and Sanghar and Ghotki in Sindh were selected to set up fibre testing laboratories to start implementation on the cotton standardization process from these areas.

More than six months have been passed after the last PCSI board meeting but the matters on the front of cotton standardization are no where in the vicinity of being materialized. The executive committee of the PCSI though had met twice after the third (and so far the last) meeting of the board of directors but sources said the meetings remained by and large an excuse to have a cup of tea together.

Pakistan is an important player in the international cotton market but due to non-compliance of the marketable standards as regard to grade, staple length and fibre strength, the country's cotton gets a depreciated price both in domestic and the international market.