According to the reports, the textile ministry's share would be 25 per cent or Rs 70-80 crore since cotton contamination is one of its major concerns and the agricultural ministry would have to take more responsibility.

However, agricultural minister Som Pal is not very keen to undertake Cotton Technology Mission, according to the knowledgeable sources. After the success of the oilseed mission, farmers of each of agricultural commodity viz., cotton, sugar, pulses etc., are lobbying for a technological mission to improve their productivity.

According to the sources, the ministry of agriculture can not raise resources for all of them. Besides given the resource constraints, if the priorities are to be set, then there are political pulls favouring certain section of the farming community.

It therefore remains to be seen how the cotton growers could pressurise to get the ballrolling. The cotton economy is in a dire state and it desperately needs to salvage the situation by increasing incomes of the farmers through higher productivity rather than through higher prices.Indian cotton is facing a dichotomy.

The cotton growers feel concerned over the domestic cotton prices going down since this would lower their income. But the cotton users find the prices too high which has led them to turn to synthetic fibres increasingly. Besides, the international prices of cotton are much below the domestic prices and that too for superior quality. This has made the cotton spinning mills to prefer imported cotton.

According to the observers, India needs to take certain hard decision relating to its cotton situation. e.g China has been sitting over a huge stock of cotton equivalent to its annual consumption and is aggressively exporting its cotton. Besides, this year it has decided to cut down its yarn production by scrapping spindlage since it is proving uneconomical to sell yarn in theinternational market. Instead it will push cotton exports. The cotton is expected to remain in an oversupply position which is likely to keep prices depressed.