Contamination Status of Indian Cotton

India is the leading producer of cotton in the world, accounting for about one-third of the world acreage under cotton cultivation, with an estimated output of about 6 million tonnes in 2017-18 (ICAC). The country is second largest consumer of cotton in the world next to China and second largest exporter after USA. The Indian Cotton were designated as the most contaminated descriptions by the International Textile Manufacturers Federation (TMF), Zurich, Switzerland as published in its biennial Cotton Contamination Survey despite the progress made in the Indian Cotton processing sector through the implementation of Technology Mission on Cotton and modernization of ginning and pressing units. Moreover this report was based on the response of around 15-16 participating mills from India. So, the present study was taken up to assess the extent of contamination of Indian cottons. A survey on the contamination of Indian Cottons, using the designed questionnaire, was undertaken in around 50 spinning mills spread across Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh in Southern Zone; Maharashtra, Gujarat in Central Zone and Punjab & Haryana in Northern Zone. The varieties processed in the spinning mills that were covered in the survey include Sankar-6, MCU-5, DCH- 32, Bunny, H 4, MECH, J-34. The sixteen contaminants covered by the ITMF survey was taken in the study for comparison purpose. The study revealed that the major contaminants observed in the lot include fibres and strings of woven plastic and plastic films, sand dust, grease and colour marks, cloth bits, jute & hessian, metal parts, leaf bits etc. The plastic films were found to be the serious contaminant, which has adverse impact during dyeing process. The results reveal that overall contamination status of the cotton were graded as insignificant to moderately contaminated with less than 10% of the surveyed mills reporting severe contamination. The nature of the contamination also reveals the prevalence of man-made contamination and also need to develop appropriate packaging material. The study recommends that besides creating awareness on clean cotton picking among the farmers, it is necessary to initiate appropriate quality control at ginneries, so that the brand value of the Indian cotton is established at the global market.