MULTAN, Oct 31: The board of directors of the Pakistan Cotton Standard Institute will deliberate upon the report of its special sub-committee, which was formed to finalize recommendations for the implementation on Cotton Standardization Ordinance 2002, on Saturday in Karachi at the Pakistan Central Cotton Committee headquarters.
Besides the report of the sub-committee, the PCSI board will also discuss the matters regarding levying of Cotton Standardization Fee, restructuring of PCSI, role of private and public sectors in cotton classing and grading. Federal secretary, ministry of food, agriculture and livestock, Salik Nazeer Ahmed, will chair the meeting.
A source at the agriculture ministry told Dawn that the sub- committee headed by the agriculture development commissioner, Muhammad Haneef, had almost “opposed” the Cotton Standardization Ordinance because in its report, which was to be discussed at the third meeting of the PCSI board, it had disagreed with the regulatory role of the PCSI to uphold standards of cotton in the country on the grounds that this (regulatory role) had no scope in the government’s policy of deregulation and market economy. The institute, however, could only recommend measures to the government to develop/modify grades and classifications of cotton.
The source further said that the sub-committee had observed that the cotton standardization was a volunteer exercise and the PCSI, however, could provide services to the ginners willing to press contamination-free cotton bales. The sub-committee had envisioned the PCSI role to the extent of a training facility.
He said instead the sub-committee emphasized to encourage role of the private sector to come up and play role to fashion cotton standardization in the country. The sub-committee, however, suggested that the PCSI institution in Karachi and its regional offices in Multan and Sukkur should be reorganized to conduct trainings for cotton grading and classification. The sub- committee had also disagreed with the proposed strength of the PCSI comprising 463 personnel, saying the existing strength of 171 was also high.
Despite its good quality, Pakistani raw cotton gets low price in the international market due to what experts call improper marketing and absence of quality control measures. Besides, lack of a pricing system based on premium and discount also discourages cotton producers to go for quality cotton.
On October 4, 2002, the then military government of Pervez Musharraf promulgated the Cotton Standardization Ordinance to establish the PCSI as a monitoring body to set up cotton standards in the country.
The functions of the PCSI envisaged in the ordinance include standardizing cotton, recommending measures to the provincial governments for production of contamination-free (or less contaminated) cotton, devising quality control measures for export and domestic use of cotton and handling procedures for pressing of contamination-free cotton at the ginning level, grading seed cotton (phutti), classifying lint cotton and conducting classes for growers, ginners, spinners, exporters and other people in public and private sectors to prepare them for cotton grading and classification, developing procedures of for settling disputes about grading and classification between sellers and buyers of seed and lint cotton, keeping a liaison with national and international cotton-related institutions and placing officials at ginneries for supervising the standardization of cotton.
Furthermore, the institute is also empowered to charge standardization fee, which will be fixed by the federal government from time to time through official notification. Besides, establishment of a fund has also been laid down in the ordinance to meet operational expenses of the PCSI.
The Cotton Standardization Ordinance has been largely welcomed in the cotton sector because at present the Pakistani cotton is placed in index B in the international market for having relatively a high percentage of non-lint contents and thus gets three to five cents per pound less than the prevailing prices of quality cotton. Sources said the bureaucratic bottlenecks had been hampering implementation of the ordinance for the last one year by constituting committees after committees to “finalize” recommendations to make it (ordinance) “practicable”.