New Delhi: India on Friday allowed cotton exports to neighbouring countries, including Pakistan and Bangladesh, via land route after scrutinising the orders issued before the government imposed a ban on March 5 which has since been partially revoked.
On March 5, the government had imposed a ban on cotton exports but the decision was rolled back on political pressure from the Congress Party and its key ally NCP, led by Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar.
However, the Commerce Ministry had decided that no fresh registration certificates (RCs) would be issued for exports and it would scrutinise all the RCs issued before the ban.
"The process of revalidation/scrutiny of all the registered contracts for export of cotton through the land custom stations with India s neighbour has been completed in the first lot of scrutiny," an official statement said.
Commerce and Textiles Minister Anand Sharma had ordered that keeping in mind the logistical issues Land Custom Station related RCs should be cleared in the first lot, it added.
India, which is the second largest producer of cotton in the world, had issued registrations certificates for 130 lakh bales (170 kg each) of cotton before the prohibition and out of that 95 lakh bales were shipped.
The country is expected to produce record 340 lakh bales of the natural fibre in the 2011-12 crop year (July-June).
Meanwhile, the Commerce Ministry has exempted 5,000 bales of Assam Comilla Cotton exports from the restrictions on the natural fibre shipments during the current marketing year ending September. However, shipments against registration certificates would need to be completed within a period of 30 days.
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