ISLAMABAD, April 6: The government has decided in principle to increase cotton cess by over 80 per cent to Rs20 per bale and has fixed a target of 13.8 million bales of cotton production for next year (2006-07).

The cotton cess, payable by the textile industry, has been stagnated at Rs11 per bale since 1995, and would be increased to Rs20 per bale, a senior official at the ministry of food and agriculture told Dawn on Thursday.

He said the Federal Committee on Agriculture (FCA) had decided early this week that the cotton area targets for the next season be kept at 3.247 million hectares - the same level of area targets envisaged for 2005-06 season.

With this area along with some improvement in the yield over that of 2005-06 under normal weather, the cotton production target for 2006-07 was fixed at 13.8 million bales.

Under the targets for next season, about 2.559 million acres of area would be brought under cotton cultivation in Punjab, followed by 638,000 hectares in Sindh, 40,000 hectares in Balochistan and 10,000 hectares in the NWFP.

As such, about 10.6 million bales of cotton production has been estimated for Punjab in 2006-07, compared with 3.130 million bales in Sindh, about 94,000 bales in Balochistan and 10,000 bales in the NWFP.

The cotton production target for the next year was fixed at about 13.8 million bales, less than the current year’s target of 15 million bales, on the assumption that farmers would opt for higher sugarcane cultivation owing to a much higher prices available to the sugarcane producers during the current season.

The sources said the cotton production target during the current year remained short of target by about 15 per cent owing mainly to less than targeted production in Punjab and Sindh, although the NWFP and Balochistan achieved their cotton production targets during the current season.

The current years’ cotton production target was 15 million bales against last year’s actual production of 14.6 million bales. The production in Punjab stood at 10.25 million bales against a target of 11.65 million bales because of the lower than expected per acre yield and less cultivated area. The production in Sindh also stood at 2.65 million bales against its target of 3.25 million bales.

The official said the FCA had also discussed the issue of increase in cotton cess and approved it in principle. The cotton cess is normally placed at the disposal of Pakistan Central Cotton Committee (PCCC), an autonomous organization established under the Pakistan Cotton Cess Act of 1948.

The PCCC has been entrusted with the evolution of cotton varieties along with production and protection technologies, including control of cotton leaf curl virus, development of commercial cotton hybrids and development of BT-cotton against the American bollworm and evolution of extra long staple cotton varieties.

The FCA was informed that the PCCC had shifted its headquarter and the Technological Research Institute to a rented place on the promise that the Karachi Port Trust would provide an alternate plot and the compensation for reconstruction purposes.

However, no progress on the subject took place due to dilly delaying attitude of the KPT management. The meeting, therefore, decided to take up the matter with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz to prevail upon the KPT to honour its commitment without further delay.