"East India Cotton Association (EICA) has told us that they would like to begin trading around November 10," civil supplies and consumer affairs secretary NN Mookherjee said.

The East India Cotton Association is the prime force behind the revival of cotton futures trading in the country, discontinued since 1962.

Mookherjee, however, did not state any reason for the delay in commencement of the trading.

Industry sources said EICA was keen to extend the mock trading for two more weeks in view of more members enrolling at the proposed exchange and expressing keen interest in trading.

Mock trading at the proposed exchange in Mumbai began on October 14 after the Forward Markets Commission (FMC) gave its clearance for the exchange in late September.

Mookherjee said though trading would commence on November 10, itsformal inauguration would be done later as food and civil supplies minister Surjit Singh Barnala was unavailable now for the kick-off ceremony.

The cotton futures exchange was initially scheduled to commence from "diwali" but the arrangement got stuck in procedural wrangles.

Trading regulations for the exchange had to undergo some changes following a suggestion by the FMC.

A special EICA meeting passed the revised regulations on September 15 after which it got the FMC clearance.

Mookherjee said government was keen to get trading at the cotton futures exchange commenced.

A positive feature of the mock trading, Mookherjee said, was that lot of youngsters were evincing interest in taking part in the trading.

Asked about objections by a section of the industry against the monopoly cotton procurement scheme of the Maharashtra government, he said it was being done on an ad hoc basis and if the exchange functioned successfully then such procurement could end.

Under the monopoly procurement scheme, theMaharashtra Cooperative Cotton Growers' Marketing Federation buys up all the cotton grown in the state.

Though the scheme ended in 1993, it is being extended annually.

Revival of the cotton exchange was approved by the United Front government last year based on the recommendations of the Prof Kamal Nayan Kabra Committee.