According to foreign news on April 6, in the past two weeks, the decline in global demand caused by the panic of the epidemic and the poor quality of raw cotton in the Punjab region have caused Indian cotton prices to drop by 1,500 rupees per quintal.

But the prices farmers get are still well above the minimum support price (MSP) of Rs 5,925 per quintal.

The highest average price of cotton in India was around Rs 9,500 an ounce over the past month, industry watchers said. This means that 70% of the products are bought at around Rs 9,500 and nearly 10% of the premium products are sold even above Rs 9,500. There are also nearly 20% lower than the average price due to poor quality.

However, the average price of cotton remained at around Rs 8,000/quintal for the past 10 days.

The state's cotton purchases stood at 957,000 quintals as of Saturday, according to the Punjab Mandi Board. Of these, only 5,545 quintals of agricultural products were purchased by private enterprises at prices below the MSP.

Mansa-based cotton grower Chander Kant Garg said the quality of cotton this time around in the main cotton-growing areas of Bathinda and Mansa was the worst ever. Garg said he had Rs 3 crore worth of lint stock but no textile unit was ready to buy due to poor quality.

The reflectance value, which determines whether the cotton sample is bright or dull, continues to fall well below the acceptable value of 72-82. Cotton lost its white color due to widespread infestation of the pink bollworm in these two regions. Traders are buying cotton at competitive prices to meet demand, but there are no buyers for this yellow cotton in the market now.

The industry believes that as the prospect of the new variant of the new crown virus, Omicron, becomes clearer and demand picks up, prices may rise again after the 15th.

Rajnish Goel, Cotton State Coordinator at Mandi said that this time the percentage of cotton arriving at procurement centers has dropped by almost 54 per cent compared to last year.

Last year as of April 4, Punjab produced more than 2.1 million quintals of raw cotton, compared to 957,000 quintals in the same period this year. This, he added, was due to damage to existing crops by the deadly pest.

"As per traditional trends, cotton arrivals should have increased last week as farmers finished planting wheat. Arrivals are now about 15,000 quintals per day."

Rakesh Rathi, director of Cotton Association of India Ltd., a body involved in exporting, spinning and ginning cotton, said the textile industry has reduced cotton imports in line with its economic decisions.

"Cotton prices in Punjab have been high since the start of the season as traders had to meet export demand. Cotton prices hit record highs as rains delayed cotton harvest in central and southern states of India. New crop has started from other Punjab prices are expected to correct at this stage. But it may not fall below the Rs 8,000 mark.”