National Workshop on “Value Creation and Market Competitiveness with Kasturi Cotton: Opportunities for Spinners and Downstream Industry”

ICAR–Central Institute for Research on Cotton Technology (CIRCOT), Mumbai, in association with The Cotton Textiles Export Promotion Council (TEXPROCIL), Mumbai, and the Southern India Mills’ Association (SIMA), Coimbatore, organized a Workshop on “Value Creation and Market Competitiveness with Kasturi Cotton: Opportunities for Spinners and Downstream Industry.” The programme was held at the auditorium of SIMA, Coimbatore on 5th Nov 2025.    During the inaugural session, Dr. Siddhartha Rajagopal, Executive Director, TEXPROCIL, provided valuable insights regarding the inception and future direction of Kasturi Cotton, along with its branding and global positioning strategies, emphasizing their significance in creating value for the downstream sector. 

Mr Ashwin Chandran, Chairman, CITI, in his inaugural address, emphasised India’s import dependency on specialised cotton varieties like ELS and contamination-free cotton. He pointed out that the increasing demands for sustainability, traceability, and digital transparency have created challenges for exporters, impacting the goal of achieving US$100 billion in textile exports by 2030. He described the Kasturi Cotton Bharat initiative as a significant milestone toward building a credible, transparent, and sustainable identity for Indian cotton aligned with global standards.

In the keynote address, Dr. S K Shukla, Director, ICAR-CIRCOT, Mumbai elaborated the various factors influencing the quality of Indian cotton fibre, including fibre strength, short fibre content, and long staple characteristics, and proposed the implementation of advanced cleaning systems to minimize trash content. He emphasized that the fibre quality of Kasturi Cotton certified bales are superior to imported cotton from Brazil, Australia etc in the long staple category. He also stressed the need to improve the fibre quality of indigenous extra-long staple cotton (ELS) for the benefit of the industries. Mr T. Rajkumar, Chairman, Standing Committee on Cotton, in his special address, recapped the importance of branding and global positioning for enhancing value addition. Dr S. Krishnakumar, Deputy Chairman, SIMA, emphasised the essential role of cotton in India's textile industry and stated that Kasturi Cotton marks a new era of quality assurance, traceability, and brand identity, thereby transforming the farm-to-fashion value chain.

A panel discussion followed, presenting industry leaders—Mr. S. Krishnakumar, Mr S. Dinakaran, and Mr A. Lakshmanan—and technical experts from ICAR-CIRCOT, Dr S. K. Shukla, Dr A. S. M. Raja, and Dr G. T. V. Prabu, moderated by Dr K. Selvaraju, Secretary General, SIMA. During the programm, technical experts from ICAR-CICR, Nagpur, Dr A H Praksh, Dr. Manickam and Dr. Sankaranarayanan also expressed their views about production aspects of cotton to meet Kasturi Cotton standards.

Key points discussed included:

• Attracting global brands and consumers to prefer and pay a premium for Kasturi Cotton.
• Enhancing ELS cotton production to match PIMA and GIZA standards.
• Addressing traceability, seed technology, and quality improvement challenges.
• Promotion of kasturi cotton processing among the stakeholders.
• The programme was ended with vote of thanks.
  About 80 participants from the spinning industry, cotton export sector, and various textile downstream industries took part in the event.