Brief History
Maharashtra State is a leading producer of cotton and accounts for 20% of the country’s total production. The area under cotton cultivation is around 29 to 31 lac hectares, which is 30% of the country’s total area under cotton production.
Cotton is important cash crop in the State. During the 70’s several malpractices like low rate, improper weighment, high deductions from the payment, high fluctuations in the rate paid by the speculative traders existed in the market, as result of which cultivators were deprived of fair price for their produce.
To ensure fair and remunerative price to the Cotton Growers in the State, to eliminate the middleman in the cotton trade, to bring the stability in income of cotton growers and to supply scientifically grade quality cotton to the consumer mills, with these main objective the Govt. of Maharashtra enacted the Raw Cotton (Procurement, Processing and Marketing) Act, 1971. This act was implemented with effect from 1972-73 cotton season.
As per the provision of aforesaid act, Cotton Monopoly Scheme was implemented in 1972 to 1983 through the Maharashtra State Cooperative Marketing Federation Ltd. Looking to the volume of activities and quantum of transaction, in the year 1984 it was decided to form a separate organization to implement the Cotton Monopoly Scheme of Govt. of Maharashtra. Accordingly, State level Cooperative organization by name The Maharashtra State Co-operative cotton Growers Marketing Federation Ltd., was formed under the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Act, 1960 under the Registration No.BOM/AGR(M)/I(M)/84-85.
Cotton Monopoly Scheme was implemented as per the provisions of the said act till 2001-02.
In the year 2002-03, taking into consideration change in the changing scenario of cotton trade Govt. of Maharashtra for the first time allowed Private Spinners, Cotton Mills, Ginning Units, to procure, process & marketing of cotton in the State of Maharashtra. This policy proved to be a roaring success as the market were buoyant and the cotton farmers benefited from the high prices.
In the year 2005-06, Govt. of Maharashtra principally decided to exists the market with support price as fixed by Govt. of India and support the farmers. This has resulted in getting competitive prices to the cotton produced by the farmers. Govt. of Maharashtra has continued the same policy to exists in the market at MSP as declared by Govt. of India to support the farmers in the State.
