New Delhi, Sept 3 (UNI) Textile Minister Giriraj Singh assured that all ‘kapas’ arriving under MSP guidelines will be procured without disruption, with a focus on timely, transparent, and farmer-centric service delivery.
The minister was chairing a meeting to assess the preparedness for Minimum Support Price (MSP) operations for cotton during the upcoming Kharif Marketing Season 2025-26 commencing from October 1, 2025.
Neelam Shami Rao, Secretary Textiles, Padmini Singla, Joint Secretary (Fibre), Lalit Kumar Gupta, CMD, Cotton Corporation of India, and other senior officials from the Ministry of Textiles and the Cotton Corporation of India were present in this meeting.
Union Minister Giriraj Singh said, “ In line with the Government’s Digital India vision, all processes–right from the procurement of cotton by the Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) under MSP operations to the scale of stocks – are now completely faceless and paperless, strengthening farmers’ and other stakeholders’ confidence and trust in MSP operations.”
Uniform norms have been laid down for the establishment of procurement centres, factoring in key parameters such as cotton cultivation area, availability of functional APMC yards, and at least the availability of one stock processing factory at the cotton procurement centre.
Resultantly, a record 550 procurement centres have been set up across major cotton-producing states.
The procurement of cotton under MSP will commence from October 1 in northern states, October 15 in central states, and from October 21 in southern states.
“Starting this season, nationwide Aadhar-based self-registration of cotton farmers and 7-day rolling slot booking will be facilitated via the newly launched ‘Kapas-Kissan’ mobile app,” the official statement noted.
The ‘Kapas-Kisaan’ platform aims to ease procurement operations, ensure transparency and enable direct Aadhaar-linked payments to farmers’ bank accounts through National Automated Clearing House (NACH).
Local Monitoring Committees (LMC) will be constituted at each APMC mandi for immediate grievance redress by the states.
