Ginners across the country empowered to produce Kasturi Cotton Bharat brand: minister

The ministry of textiles has empowered cotton ginners across the country to produce Kasturi Cotton Bharat brand, based on the QR code certification technology, as per stipulated protocol.

About 343 modernized ginning and pressing units have so far been registered across the country for participating in the Kasturi Cotton initiative and about 100 bales of Andhra Pradesh cotton have been certified under Kasturi Cotton Bharat brand, minister of state for textiles Pabitra Margherita informed the Lok Sabha in a written reply on Tuesday.

Ginning is the process of cleaning cotton by removing the seeds and other waste matter, using a gin. For ginning, cotton is first dried to remove moisture before cleaning it of leaves or other foreign matter.

Kasturi Cotton Bharat programmed ensures quality and traceability of cotton, allowing certification and branding of Indian cotton. 

Kasturi Bharat initiative, is a collaborative effort among the central government, trade bodies and industry, which was formalised through the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Cotton Corporation of India and the Cotton Textiles Export Promotion Council on15 December 2022.

Constituted with a budgetary support of Rs30 crore, which includes Rs15 crore share of trade and industry bodies, the initiative provides complete traceability of product through the Kasturi Cotton Bharat tag.

A QR based certification technology is used at each stage of the processing and a Block-chain based software platform will provide end-to-end traceability and transaction certificate. 

The Kasturi Cotton Bharat programme is operational at the national level and the Block-chain technology under the Kasturi Cotton Bharat programme is designed to serve the entire Indian cotton value chain.

Ginners across the country have been empowered to produce Kasturi Cotton Bharat brand as per stipulated protocol, the minister stated.