Cotton data may be manipulated
15 October, 2012
ISLAMABAD: The reconstituting of Pakistan Central Cotton Committee(PCCC) will lead the country to a bias and unauthentic data as private sector could be manipulated cotton date according to its own wish, said an official.
The official said the recently re-constituted Pakistan Central Cotton Committee's powers have been given to private sector which may manipulate cotton date according to its own interests because the government will become helpless to fix unbiased cotton production target and release authentic date of it.
The official said after the reconstituting of Cotton Body the government's role has almost ended to fix cotton production target and to present unbiased cotton date as the government will only depend on private sector's data.
When in this regard contacted Cotton Commissioner Ministry of Textile Industry Dr.Khaild Abdullah, he said that after the defunct Federal Committee on Agriculture (FCA) of the devolved Ministry of Food and Agriculture, the targets of any crop commodity could not officially fixed; rather provinces use their last year's achievements as target of the next year.
He said that a report published in April this year, by Global Agriculture Information Network (GAIN) projected Pakistan's cotton production for the year 2012-13 as 10 per cent increase in area and production. The author forecasted the Pakistan's cotton cultivation on 3.3 million and production as 11 million bales (480 lbs per bale) equivalent to 14.1 million bales (170 kg).
Dr.Khaild Abdullah said that the report apparently was not based on any authentic source or data. Such premature projections may damage the cotton market, shake investor's confidence create bias estimates of global cotton stocks. Ministry of Textile Industry can not endorse such reports.
According to notification, Shahzad Khan from All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) would head day to day affairs of PCCC as Vice President; five more APTMA members will be in committee representing each province, three members each from Farmers Associate Pakistan, Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association and Karachi Cotton Association. It is quite relevant to mention here that APTMA had made proposals last year to the government to reconstitute committee with greater representation of private sector stakeholders and after all more than one and a half year the Association get succeeded to reconstituted PCCC which will be now dominated by 17 members representing textile industry, ginners, farmers and Karachi Cotton Association.
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