The Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI) warmly welcomes the Union Cabinet’s approval of the Mission for Cotton Productivity for the impetus it can provide to the country’s aspiration of creating a $350 billion textile and apparel industry by 2030.
The ‘Mission for Cotton Productivity’ was announced in the Union Budget for the financial year 2025-26. “This 5-year mission will facilitate significant improvements in productivity and sustainability of cotton farming, and promote extralong staple cotton varieties. The best of science & technology support will be provided to farmers. Aligned with our integrated 5F vision for the textile sector, this will help in increasing incomes of the farmers, and ensure a steady supply of quality cotton for rejuvenating India’s traditional textile sector,” Union Finance Minister Smt Nirmala Sitharaman had said in her FY26 Budget speech.
“This decision by the Union Cabinet will provide a huge boost to the textile and apparel sector as it seeks to become more globally competitive and emerge stronger to better leverage opportunities emerging from Free Trade Agreements (FTAs),” CITI Chairman Shri Ashwin Chandran said. “CITI would like to express its heartfelt gratitude to the Hon’ble Prime Minister and the Union Ministers of Agriculture, Finance, and Textiles, for this much-awaited measure.”
Shri Chandran said that the Mission for Cotton Productivity would address the dichotomy in India’s cotton sector. Despite being one of the largest cotton growers worldwide, India’s cotton productivity lags that of many of its peers, undermining the country’s ability to compete effectively on the export front. The bulk of India’s textile exports uses cotton as raw material.
Last month, a delegation from the textile and apparel industry had met the Hon’ble Union Minister of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare, Shri Shivraj Singh Chouhan, in Delhi to flag the challenges faced in the cotton value chain and requested his intervention.
The textile and apparel sector is India’s second-biggest employer and a major contributor to the GDP and exports. India’s textile and apparel exports in the financial year 2025-26 were adversely impacted by the 50% US tariff, which was in place for more than five months in the last financial year, and the turbulence in West Asia. Exports declined 2.2 per cent in dollar terms year-on-year in FY26 to $35.79 billion.
